Christmas and Hablar-ing up a storm

Merry Christmas everyone!!

It was a blast. We made French toast and opened presents (favorite present - green sweater, boring, I know - but I love it) but really the highlight of Christmas was having Christmas lessons with people. We read Helaman 14:1-8 and Luke 2:1-20. It was very great to reflect on Jesus Christ and have Him be the main focus for literally all of December.

On Christmas Eve we got to drive by and say hi to our mission leaders, they were so cute and all standing in a line to say hi to us and give us candy and Christmas presents. It was like a Christmas drive through! We also stopped and talked to some other missionaries from our car.

I've had quite a few strong emotions this week. Happy, Angry, Excited, Sad. I realize this makes me sound like Spock in that one episode of Star Trek where he can't control his emotions but really this week has been crazy.

- Happy most of the time. Don't worry, I am still very happy and love being here.

- Angry at one of our members who said something rude to us about a friend. It really hurt me and we didn't expect her to say something like that.

- Excited for Savala! We had a spirit filled lesson and invited him to be baptized, he said yes!! We didn't commit to a date yet. He said he has found his Brothers and Sisters and knows how important baptism is.

- Sad because this is our last week before transfers and we're like 90% sure I'll be transferred. I don't think I could feel like I did a good job if I didn't feel sad about leaving. It hurts my heart. This might be the first time I cry on my mission.

I've been doing language study sometimes with some Hermanas in our zone, I actually got to join one of their lessons with a recent convert! It was fun, I mostly listened. I feel pretty solid about listening but not really speaking. Although every single time I have a lesson with them they compliment me so much about my Spanish but I feel so inadequate.

We made a graham cracker house on Christmas eve and it turned out nice!

Well yet again I am running out of time. We went on a walk with some sisters in our 'activity group' and it was okay I guess. It just used up a lot of our time. When we found out that we would be with some Hermanas (different from the ones we're friends with) Sister Harrison got excited and said that I could 'hablar up a storm' and we laughed a lot about that phrase. I talked with them un poquito..

Well, I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Sister/Hermana Smalley

Pictures:
some memmes I found on Facebook (found through completely legitimate means I swear, members in my ward, and missionaries posting them)
Christmas zoom
Christmas eve drive by
graham cracker house
christmas with family













Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

it smells like September

Image
 9/6/21 Hi everyone! So I'm still here in El Abrazo, it'll be my fifth transfer here and I'm doing great! I was kind of ready for a change but I'll enjoy it! My companion is Hermana Hawes, who I already know, we lived together for two transfers! And now we're back again, her after 3 areas, 5 companions and emergency transfers and craziness and me after 1 companion in the same area as always! We're excited to be together, and so far today's been great. We're in the beginning of September, the most patriotic month! It's like the fourth of July but every day but in Chile with Chilean flags and food and music and so far I like it, the big days are the 18th and the days around it. Our friends are doing great, Diego is awesome! He received an awesome confirmation that the church and the book of mormon is true in a dream (I've heard so many cool dream stories and all my dreams are stupid or utter nonsense), and now he is thinking about baptism and progr...
Read more

oh my gosh he's so cooooooool

Image
Hola! We have a friend we found on Facebook named Erick and he's like the frickin classiest guy. He went to Harvard and a few other big name universities. He's super smart and is pretty golden. (he's the person I was talking about a few weeks ago that I want to improve my Spanish so I can talk to him better) He's originally from Mexico. We were talking one day about learning Spanish and he showed us his visual dictionary he used when he was learning French (he speaks English fluently as well..) We thought it was super cool and he said he'd give it to us when he comes to church. We asked him where he lives and he said Alexandria...... bruh. I love Alexandria but I don't live there anymore. We were devastated because that means we can't teach him, we have to pass him off to other missionaries. This is literally the best frickin guy. He drove 25 minutes to Woodbridge to pick up his Libro de Mormón and also to come to church this Sunday (he brought his mom too!)...
Read more

The winds of change

Image
 6/21/21 Holis! this week was a little bit crazy, but overall great! My companion Hermana Rondón went home and I got a new companion, Hermana Espinoza. She's from Chile, from Talca, and we're pretty similar. She loves music and plays the violin. It's been a little lonely in the house because we're the only ones here, both Hermana Gaete and Hermana Hawes got transferred and their area switched to elders :( But we're off to a great start! We work well together. We invited our friend Joseline to be baptized and she accepted! She's going to pray about it and will be baptized July 9th if it's the right day for her. Something I loved in my study this week: Doctrine and Covenants section 59! I loved reading about the commandments, especially about keeping the sabbath day holy. I don't have anything too terribly exciting for you all, but I have a few pictures. I guess I just want you to know that I'm doing really great ^-^ I have also attached an alarm from ...
Read more