Getting in the Holiday Spirit 🍂🦃🎄

Hello friends!

I was getting excited so I set up our Christmas tree and some Christmas lights last week on Monday! I found them in the closet and wasn't disappointed.

A few days ago we were talking on the phone to our YSA ward mission leader and we started talking about Thanksgiving.

Leader: "Oh yeah Thanksgiving was always rough as a missionary, everyone gave us too much food"

Us: "Dang, that must have been hard, everyone giving you food and all."

Leader: "Oh wait are you having Thanksgiving by yourselves?"

Us: "yeah 😔"

Leader: "am I allowed to Uber eats you something?"

Us: "no 😔"

Honestly, I'm so excited. We went shopping today and got all the food. Unfortunately the store didn't have turkey so we got marinated pork chops instead. Same thing, whatever. I'm going to make 12 mini pies. I'll keep you updated.

Last week was great! I forgot to tell you this, but a few weeks ago our friend Jake who is going to be baptized told us that he had some spiritual experiences and answers to his prayers. He told us about them and said "I just keep getting the feeling that The Man Upstairs has got some big plans for me, you know what I mean?"

This week we had an hour long one sided conversation with our friend who I talked about a few weeks ago who might be a famous christian musician. I say he might be because we had someone look him up and all they found were obituaries... He was doing all the talking, of course.. At one point he was talking about how he doesn't want to meet us in person because he thinks that appearances shouldn't matter. He also said he doesn't know anything about us but it doesn't matter. He said "For all I know, Sister Smalley is a karate expert" and I had to write that quote down so I wouldn't forget.

Transfer board came out on Saturday and Sister Harrison and I are still together this transfer, I didn't get transferred to the Spanish program. Not thrown into el fuego yet I suppose... Sister Harrison's MTC companion is in our zone now and she was very very excited when we saw that! Basically our whole zone got mixed around except us. New zone leaders, new district leaders. One of our zone leaders got called to be an AP and he didn't even know because they forgot to call him! We were talking to them the day before on the phone and they were asking us what we thought would happen. They were 99% sure they'd stay together. Nope. The only one left out of the trio is the junior companion who is getting a new trainer.

The other days were good, but Sunday was the pinnacle of our week.

Yesterday we had the best lesson with Firas, perhaps even the best lesson I've had yet as a missionary. It was very spiritual. We taught him about testimony. We talked for a pretty long time about all of our own personal experiences, and what sharing our testimony means to us. Everyone shared a lot, and the spirit was there the entire time. 

A little background on Firas is that he started asking his manager at work, Brother Fairbanks, questions about our church and questions about religion in general. He was impressed by how much love he had for his family, and how good of a person he was, so one day he asked him about his religion. Over the space of a few months, they discussed the gospel quite a lot.

The most tender moment in this lesson was when Firas was talking about the impact Brother Fairbanks had on him, and he said that his greatest desire is to be like him and have so much of an impact on another person to bring them to the Gospel like Brother Fairbanks did for him. Our hearts were filled with love for both of them and we are so happy for Firas to be baptized and continue learning.

Multiple times after that lesson I told Sister Harrison "My soul is rejoicing!"

We had a regional conference with Sister Aburto, Elder Soares, and President Eyring on Sunday as well and it was really really great. I don't know if any of you watched it (it was for the North America Northeast area). My favorite part was what President Eyring taught that was so simple yet made so much sense and helped me grow.

When we follow God's commandments, we invite the Holy Ghost to be with us. The Holy Ghost testifies to us that what we are doing is right. We then gain a testimony about keeping the commandments. We must first act, and after we act, we gain a testimony of that action. The opposite is also true. When we are not acting, we lose the Holy Ghost, which leads to a loss of testimony. We must continually act without failing in order to have testimony and spiritual strength. Obedience brings the Spirit, which in turn, strengthens us to be obedient. It is a circular pattern.

That's about all for this week!

I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving!

Hermana/Sister Smalley

Pictures!

Contains:

- lots of pics from our walk around old town Alexandria last Monday

- christmas decorations!

- us wearing some nice coats we found in the closet today. We got very dressed up to go shopping