Merry Christmas!

My oh my, this week is Christmas! 

I have loved being a missionary this Christmas season, it's a good thing that the Lord blessed me with two Christmas' because this time around I've had my own testimony deepen of how special this season is. 

The closer it gets to Christmas the busier the square gets and the more fun we have :)

I'll admit though, this week was probably one of the busiest and craziest weeks of my mission. So many things happen that I can't even remember any of them... just kidding haha.

 

Tuesday we spent the majority of the day with the departing sisters. We were able to attend the temple with them and then lunch at Olive Garden. 

Then on Wednesday I was able to pick up my new companion, Sister Rajah from Perth, Australia. And yes she does have a pretty cool accent. 

​We spent most of Wednesday in the mission office with the new sisters. We had 13 wonderful and powerful sisters arrive from the MTC. We met all of them, interviewed them all and then met with President and paired them up with their companions. . Sadly, after getting through Wednesday both President and Sister Poulsen came down with a pretty bad cold, so they have been out of the office for the past few days. So that's been a bit tricky as we needed to plan for our big Mission Leadership Training and Council which happened this morning. This week we also had a stake that volunteered to feed some of our sisters missionaries which is such a blessing for us. We will be going to dinner this week right before Christmas, so it will be really special. 

We also had the blessing of being able to hear from some wonderful people. Brother Michael Wilcox came to our Thursday Relief Society and shared a wonderful message about the first Christmas that happened in the Americas so long ago. Then on Friday, Elder Lynn Robbins came and spoke to us about the difference between doing and becoming. He taught us how we can use our missionary planner as a tool to help us become better disciples of Jesus Christ. it was wonderful! Then on Sunday we were blessed to have Elder Ronald Rasband come to our Sacrament Meeting. It has been such an uplifting week. And I promise with all of these fun perks we still had the time to do lots of missionary work. One lady who Sister Nogueira and I had been teaching, we actually found her one evening wandering the square with her brother who was a member, she shared with us that she has been able to recognize this as truth. She attended church yesterday and has decided that she wants to be baptized. The gospel is true! I'm grateful to be a missionary and to be able to serve the Lord in this way.

I told Sister Rajah and we weren't allowed to get tired over the next few weeks because we just have too many things that we need to do between helping President and our investigators. This week we are going to be having the Christmas Devotional this week and we somehow have to figure out how to hook the sound system up in one of our bigger theaters. So if you want something to pray for, there you go :) me and techy things haven't been the best of friends the last few weeks. We also want to be able to find a lot of time to teach our investigators. Using time wisely is a skill the Lord is trying to teach us right now. I know He will succeed :)

The work continues to move forward, I'm grateful for this Christmas season and for all that I have learned this year. I love you all lots and hope you have a merry merry Christmas! 

XOXOXOX

Sister Fluckiger