Called to Serve: week 8: we are the SPONGE sisters

I love fast and testimony meeting for many reasons, but one of those reasons is for testimonies that start out like this:

"I was talking with my girlfriend and she asked what my love language was. I told her I was a sponge. I take what I get and soak it all in, just give me love!" Haha dead!

December came and brought Christmas to missionary work!! We did a whole new wave of member calls and visits to share light the world and 3 Nephi 12:14-16. It has been so cool to share the SAME scripture with everyone and all of them have different insight. We have had some of the coolest conversations with return missionaries, converts, less actives, people from other countries, and so much more. I'm starting to love YSA because I get such cool insight from people just a couple years older than me. And all the BYU students seem to have connections in some way to Wilsonville, my USU friends, or my family. It's pretty fun to play the name game for the first 5 minutes of lessons haha.

December also means lots of awesome devotionals!! I highly recommend watching the light the world music fireside devotional that came out on December 1. We have probably listened to it 20 times this week, especially the first and last songs. The music is GORGEOUS and will totally get stuck in your head! And while I totally miss my classic Christmas music, I am grateful to have some new Christmas hymns to jam to haha. The first presidency Christmas devotional on Sunday night was tender!! Becky Craven spoke on heavenly hugs and swaddles and it not only melted my heart, but also the prophets!! He spoke on the birth of Jesus Christ in more depth and brought special meaning to the reason for the season. 10/10! Go watch them both this season!!

We also had the chance to film 2 of our recent converts stories this week. One of whom I met for the first time this week, Ian, told us he wants to serve a mission! He was baptized a few months ago in the Provo river and has had some fire spiritual experiences. Our second video was of Karim who also shared some AWESOME one liners about the gospel and his testimony. I am excited to put them together and will post them to FB if you're interested in checking them out!!

Finally, we found one new person this weekend(literally Sunday night at 8:45)! We had been told by a handful of people of this nonmember, josh, living in one of our apartment complexes, but he had never been home in the past. We went to knock his door with a member we had met on a walk last week and he was not only home, but he talked with us for 30 minutes AND invited us back next Sunday night! He had lots of good questions and thoughts about God, the after life, and families so we are excited to answer those questions and teach him some lessons. He's also on the BYU track team so that's cool hehe!

MIRACLE: Araceli, the one we baptized my first week in the mission, works in Utah and sends money to her family in Argentina. we had someone anonymously give us $200 to give to her for Christmas for herself and we had the coolest experience. she texted us after we dropped it off and said that she had had lots of extra expenses this past week and had been praying for things to work out and then we dropped off some extra cash! she said she has seen so many blessings since her baptism and it made us so so happy!!

Merry Christmas!!!