Happy Boxing Day Everyone!

Wow it's been such an exciting week! so much going on in the missionary world of Lacombe with all the wonderful Christmas events!

We didn't have a chance to teach a lot of lessons this week with people being super busy with Christmas but we were thankful to be able to be at the Live Nativity/ Creche display set up at the church. It was amazing! i have never seen a live nativity, with all the ward volunteering to be the many parts of the Christmas story and people bringing in their animals - sheep, donkey and goat! it was so well done with music, lighting and costumes. I'll attach pictures for everyone to see. on Tuesday we helped set up the creche in the gym for six hours. all the walls were covered with white fabric and tables were set up surrounded with Christmas trees and white lights with the 200 creche's set up. people from all over the communities came and enjoyed the show, the creches and some hot chocolate and apple cider with cookies after! i had a lot of great conversations with people and invited many to take the lessons. i didn't have any immediate luck but i know the community's prospect of the church has increased in respect :D

Christmas eve was exciting! we had our whole day set up with lessons and everybody cancelled.... so we decided to go and visit a little old lady in the lodge senior centre, sister silliker. who I've come to know really well,we went to visit her and she was stuck in her wheel chair needing to go to the hospital! so we got her to the emergency and they gave her strong pain killer shots for her new knee. it was intense and I'm so glad that we were there at the right time, she still tells us we were the angels that arrived right on time! we then came back and went caroling with ward members at another senior centre. it was so fun to sing all the songs and meet new people. we then went to a Christmas party at the bishop's and his family and headed home for the night!

Christmas day was AMAZING! we got to sleep in.... which was awesome! we went to church at 10am and had a wonderful program of commentary that included Jewish customs that they did at the time and musical numbers including one i got to sing in with the choir - Where shepherds lately knelt - it was beautiful! many of the members invited us over but with time constraints we opened presents at home.... had a great brunch with the cuff family that we live with and then headed off to talk to the family on skype! it was so great to see the family... it's been 7 months! we chatted and then headed off to Christmas dinner with the hill family, stopped at a couple other homes and then headed to bed exhausted.

one of my favourite Christmas presents this Christmas was stopping by our new convert's home - Anne - with her new husband Neil! i was so worried if he was actually interested in the gospel and if Anne would stay active. we hadn't heard from them in a week and when we stopped by they said they've been reading the book of mormon together, a chapter a day! that makes me so excited for the work here!

so many blessings to be grateful for. But most of all I'm grateful for the family and friends that have supported me so much throughout the past 10 months of my missionary service. i have good days and harder days but all in all I'm thankful for you guys who remind me of my purpose and pray for me! I love you and miss you! Seven months today I'll be home in surrey! hard to believe.... stay strong and keep the Christmas spirit with you all year long.

lots of love

sister wotherspoon