December 29, 2013

Merry Christmas everyone!! What a wonderful day it was, I hope you all enjoyed the candy canes and the Savior's Birthday!! :D We got to go caroling at the hospital, and to a less-active lady we found door-knocking. We had a lunch with Tamara, and all the branch, which was awesome! What a wonderful day :) 

Christmas Eve we pulled our mattresses out into the living room (aka "lounge") to sleep under the Christmas tree, a Woodbury family tradition. I was pulling my mattress into the hallway and backed up into the door frame, which actually really hurt haha :) I stood there, holding my head, and SIster Woodbury came up behind me. She was like, "Oh... my.. GOSH - oh my gosh ohmygoshohmygosh BED BUGS! BED BUGS!" I have had itchy skin ever since we got here, presubably from eczema. When she said this, i was about to be like "Are you kidding me? I suffered because of THAT?"  I looked down at my mattress, to see that there were in fact no bedbugs. I leapt over the mattress and chased her like i've never chased anyone in my life. I'm not sure what i was going to do with her when i got her, but I WAS GOING TO GET HER. haha that was a hilight of CHristmas eve :)  

After getting the mattresses out, we turned the lights off and just had the little lights on our stick of a tree on, and listened to the Messiah and Oh Holy Night, sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I was just so overcome with gratitude for my Savior, what He did for us, and that the Father sent him here so we could live. I am so grateful for my Savior, I am so lucky to know the truth, and so blessed to be here sharing that knowledge with everyone I see. 

Another highlight of the week - TAMARA GOT BAPTIZED!!!! Wow, what an amazing experience! She has literally changed her whole life, just because she loves the Lord. When we gave her the strength of youth pamphlet, we came back the next day (literally 24 hours later) and she had thrown away her favorite movie, gotten rid of her twilight books, and got rid of her Nikki Manaj CD. Whoah. She is SO COOL!! Her standards are so high, which is so cool! She doesn't have other youth here, which is a bummer for fellowshipping, but she also doesn't have other youth to compare to, to say "oh, well THEY listen to that, so it's okay for me." She just 100% goes by the spirit and then acts on it. After her example, I think i'm going to have to get rid of some books and music when i get home... 

Her service was amazing!! Her confirmation was SOOO cool as well! The Lord is so proud of her decision to get baptized and become a member of God's church. I am so proud of her!!!! The day she got baptized, she went out to tea with her granddad. A song came on that her mom had requested would be played at her funeral. In her own words, "It wasn't a coincidence." We told her that her mom must be very happy about her decision, and talked about the temples. Her eyes just about popped out of her head, i guess we didn't teach this properly before baptism. Woops, my bad. Anyways, it was quite a miracle. SO AWESOME!!!!

I love you all!!! The church is true!!

Sister Rose