Silent Night. Grown Up Christmas List. Little Drummer Boy. Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem.

Just all the songs that I really have kinda stuck in my head... I can't remember all the lyrics to them so I get half-way through them and them I slowly kinda just start humming haha. Can't lie I even start singing Donkey's song from Shrek... I"m sure that'll be something I hum on the plane to Brazil once it get there. Speaking of Brazil the girl I came out with from my MTC districto got her Visa last Monday! She headed out last Wednesday during transfers! So EXCITING! And there's a family in my ward here that their daughter got her visa and left her temp reassignment for Brazil today. I don't know much about what is going on with my FBI stuff but I"ll get to Brazil when I need to get there. For now I need to kick some butt here. 

There's a lot of blessing for being here though. I get a package! Haha. I can renew my license in January easier too. And I got to go to Marvin Goldstein's piano concert last night ( no big deal or anything haha, like how I led into that... totally smooth). That's totally a bonus especially since he's in my ward :) And I"m not going to lie I wasn't sure who that was until I was assigned to this ward, but now that I know I"m totally a fan because the brotha is otimo!! Kid you not, that was most amazing thing ever. Made my night and you wanna know something even more amazing? There were so many non members there too! Oh my gosh it was great. The spirit was there so strongly and all I wanted to do was give Brother Goldstein a huge hug.... But I can't... cause I"m a missionary... a sister missionary. It was still amazing though, hug or no.

Friday night I was feeling better so we did some service for the lady that lets us email at her dance studio. She's great and was putting on her Christmas ballet at FSU so we went down and helped hand out programs. It was great because we handed out fliers for Sunday night in the programs too haha. 

Yesterday we were able to finish the missionary stocking/gift bags I was telling y'all about too! It was great. Got all the Elders and Sisters their own stockings and bag of gifts. I kinda want to see one of them open it. THey'll love it though. We have our Half Mission Conference this coming week and that's where Sister Smith will be handing them out to the missionaries. Exxxcccciting! 

I"ll get more info about Skyping next Monday. Love y'all.

Ficam firme na fe!

Com Amor,

Sister Irons

Blessings of the Spirit

This week is transfers and guess what? I"m not moving :) I get to stay in Tally 3 for a while longer! Which is great. But we did move apartments this past week. I made my companion do it in one day. There was no way that we would have gotten it done if we split things up so we got everything out. The Elders were a great help moved all the heavy stuff of course :) Bless their hearts. They were great though, made things move a lot faster too. We made them cinnamon rolls to thank them and I think we will always have willing help from them in the future lol! Getting kinda sick too blah (it's almost bad enough for me to get a really good laugh cough going...). So far just achy but that's why God created dayquil. Feeling a little bit better and was able to rest in between meetings yesterday.

Other than that this week has been totally busy! We got a media referral last Monday after I emailed, how freaking cool is that?!!! The referral came from a missionary serving in the Vegas area. His grandparents live in our boundaries and are guess..... Atheist! Challenge accepted! The grandma seems like a great woman. Totally not against the church, loves it in fact for the awesome support it's given her daughter and her daughter's family. Funnier story? We got the best feeling from these people. As we knocked on the door the grandma came up and was like welp come in! My companion and I thought that it was way too easy but hey we went in! Her grandson had sent a letter that he had put in for some missionaries to come by just to show her what he did as a missionary. She had just gotten to the part where he told her he had put in the referral as we knocked! Otimo? I think YES!!! She says she's not interested but that she wants to get some help with her family history work at the family history center. Of course my companion and I jumped on that so fast it's not even funny. 

Sunday was a super big day for us too. One of the less actives we are working with showed up again! YAY!!! Plus she brought her daughter who we are probably going to start working with for when she wants to get baptized next year  when she's 8. Plus we went to see a less active and her sister and grandson's girlfriend was there. Guess who is going to start taking lessons?! The spirit was so strong when we were talking with them it was fantastic. It'll be even better when we teach them since we'll be doing it at the less active's home and she'll sit in. This week was definitely awesome. 

This coming week we also get to fill in the missionary stockings with all the stuff that people from our stake bought to give to the missionaries not getting anything from home for the Holiday. 

This past week we also did a huge service project for one of our PI's. There were like 20 members that showed up to do yard work. It looked great after only 1 hour. We even had some people swinging in the trees... like literally. There's an older lady in our ward who was like, weellll that looks like it would hold me... Brother give me a push! Haha, she's hilarious even got it on camera. 

I also had to get and FBI clearance for my visa y'all. I'm a weapon... A weapon of the Lord! Teachin' the gospel! 

Fique firme na fe!

Com Amor,

Sister Irons

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving we had dinner with a non member, Pam. She loves the missionaries but won't take the lessons, we even asked her again while we were helping get things together. We were like okay... You'll say yes one day so we'll keep trying. We've got a few people going over to her home Saturday to help her fix up her yard and cut down some trees so at least she can meet some more members from the ward. There's a family that is fellowshipping her now, the Marshalls, but they might be moving so we really want to get her to know more people. We've got a lot of great people coming and helping so that will be great!!

 

Something that really hit me hard this week was agency. We can choose to be so many different things. We can choose to be thankful for the things we've received, to be happy, discouraged, sad, upset, annoyed haha. I looked at myself and what I have been doing and feeling like on my mission... For a while I honestly wasn't feeling happy. I couldn't figure out what was wrong I mean really I am on a mission for the Lord preaching the wonderful gospel what would be the problem?!! I looked at what I was doing here, I was getting discouraged about all the little things. There have been some pretty lame moments (duh!) and I was getting down on myself for not getting something right the first time... I could tell I wasn't giving it all the positive-ness as I could. I know that seems kind of silly but I forgot really why I'm here! It's definitely not to be perfect, but to do the best I can to bring others unto Christ. We keep telling people that you don't have to be perfect but you do have to try and here I was beating myself up for the being perfect... Ironic huh?
For the most part we can all choose to be happy. I wasn't really choosing that I was kinda stuck on the bad, BUT good thing I can choose to change that huh?!?!?!? Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say in a not so short of a way, haha, is that even if things don't work and you aren't perfect choose to look at it in a good way. There's good in every situation. Obviously you can't always see what it is at first but maybe days, months, years down the road you will.

CHALLANGE!!!!: When you have a crappy moment try and get 2 positive things in your in and hang on :) Discouragement stinks and it weakens faith. SO try and stay discouraged for as short as possible... Or you know don't get discouraged.... BOOM problem solved! Haha :)

 

Anyway so while I was on trade offs we got into a less active's home! YAY! We were able to share a message and she wanted to take our photos for Christmas presents! Cool thing is that there's a less active in my ward who we're trying to get to do the same thing! Funny how that works huh? Her daughter has a friend that knows the sister I was on trade-offs with so she decided to record our spiritual thought and send it to the other missionary's mom. All I gotta say is that I don't do well while being filmed haha. If it's on youtube it'll be a good laugh for someone. 

Last night we get to sing a song at the Stake Christmas Concert. All the missionaries that were able to make it, there was like 50 of us. We sang Little Town of Bethlehem, we sounded awesome!! had a few non members show up from the place that we volunteer at, it's called the Shelter is like Marion House in CS. SO COOL RIGHT?!

 

That's all I can remember for now... I'll leave and think of something else... I'll just write it down :) 

 

Com Amor!!!

Sister Irons