Christmas Has Come and Gone

Hello my fellow family,

Well it is pretty crazy that Christmas has already come and gone. It was a great day. We woke up extra early and had a breakfast with the missionaries in the zone. After that we played some volleyball.  When we were done with that we went to the West's home and I talked with the family (minus mom). Then we went home and slept...:) It was great to catch up on sleep.

After that we went over to another members house and there I Skyped mom for a few minutes.  It was great to talk to everyone!  After this we went to the Vera's home and we had a nice American dinner.  It was like half American….But it was yummy :)  It was super cool because they invited their less active/non member family members over.  So we were able to share a message about the Savior's birth to them all, it was great!  After that it was proselyting time so we finished delivering our cookies to investigators and less active members.

Last Monday we had our Christmas conference. It was super awesome.  It was like an hour away from our area and we still had a few members come.  It was great! The Spirit was so strong.  It was great to be able to sing many Christmas hymns.

This week was filled with a lot of service.  We were able to help some people out with a variety of things preparing for Christmas.

Some sad news.  Carlos, Chayo and their family are going to be moving back to California.  They feel so alone here and bored.  I am really nervous about this decision so we have invited them to pray about it.  I will miss them a whole lot. 

Ana is returning to Oregon from Florida today but she will be at home in Salem this next week because she is getting her wisdom teeth out so we still won't see her for awhile.

We are going to be teaching Yoselin tonight and are going to invite her to be baptized again. Please keep her in your prayers :)

This week I have been thinking a lot about "sitting on the fence" There are so many things that we can have one foot on one line and the other foot on the other line.  It is so easy to get as close as we can to the limit to see how far we can push it.  We can't live like this!  No matter what it is whether watching rated R movies or going to sacrament meeting late or whatever it may be we need to live as far as possible from the line on the opposite end.  Striving to be exactly obedient to the commandments of God.  I love you all so much and I know you all are striving your best.  But this New Years I invite you all to do a little better.  Set goals that are going to help you live the commandments with exact obedience.  I know that as we do this we will be able to feel the Spirit much more abundantly in our lives.

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas! I love you all very much.

Xoxox

Hermana Gifford