We had an awesome discussion at Zone Conference this week about how of all the gifts we receive, the gift of Jesus Christ is the best! I had not been feeling like it was almost Christmas. For one, there is no snow! and I just feel weird not being able to buy presents for everyone. It was really helpful to realize that I have the greatest gift I could ever give to anyone and it's built right into me at no cost! It's my knowledge of the Savior! I've been studying the Christmas story in Luke 2 and I realized how much I miss reading that as a family. I think it's been a few years since we've done it and I really miss it!
We are going to have a white Christmas though! We have a woman in our ward (Alicia's grandma) who is getting rebaptized on Christmas, hopefully! It's the BEST kind of white Christmas there is! I'll send a picture of her. She looks just like my mom! It's so weird! I showed her a picture of my mom and she froze! She can't believe how much they look alike! It's really cool! She is a member of a family with like 11 kids and she married into a family with like 17 kids and she had 8 boys of her own. They are all either less-active or non-members. We along with the Bishop feel that her rebaptism is the link for the rest of the family to come around.
There is a lot of excitement in the air right now. I can feel the work here just getting ready to explode! I'm so excited to be a part of it! I went on exchanges on Wednesday afternoon to Thursday night with S. Nelson. She and S. Glasgow are companions in Sweet Home, Oregon. They were doing a contest with their Seminary kids to see who could pass out the most Book of Mormons, so when S. Nelson came, she and I needed to pass out 2 Book of Mormons and we only had about 20 minutes left of the night. We had driven past a woman sitting in a garage in downtown Willamina. I felt like we should go back and talk to her. We drove to where she was and she was gone, so we headed back to Sheridan. We got just a little outside of Willamina and I felt like we needed to go back into town. We went over by where the lady was and knocked on this door across the street. These two VERY intoxicated men answered the door and they gave us REALLY creepy looks (don't worry mom, the Holy Ghost protected us!) I started backing up and just said, "Have a good night. We're leaving!" then we ran down the street towards Main! Ha! We started to walk down Main St. and we saw this guy with this little girl. We started to talk to them and found out that they are former investigators of some Elders serving in Independance, Oregon. The elders hadn't referred them to us, because they just moved here and didn't have a permanent address and phone. We just happened to run into them that night and he was never given his own Book of Mormon, so we got to pass out 1 of 2 books! We also scheduled an appointment with him and his girlfriend for the next day. (Their names are Bambi and Josh).
We were walking back towards our car and there was this guy walking behind us. S. Nelson turned around and started to talk to him. We found out that he had read part of the Book of Mormon, but had lost his copy when he moved from Sheridan to Willamina, so we gave him another copy and scheduled an appointment. Unfortunately both appointments fell through, but we have ways of contacting them and EVERYONE needs a chance to accept the gospel! It was really cool to see that our desire to pass out 2 Book of Mormons in 20 minutes was VERY doable when we listened to the Holy Ghost and prayed for help! It was awesome!
S. Abbott and I had a pretty cool experience on Saturday. We had been Boonie tracting for about an hour with no luck. We drove to the mission border to see where it was in our area and then went back to the apartment for a second. As we were leaving the apartment, I felt like we needed to go see this less-active family named Hook. I was questioning why I felt we needed to go there. I was worried that I just wanted to go, because it would give us some "down" time. I could feel that, that wasn't why I wanted to go there though, so we went. We got there and the family was out training their horses, but the nanny was in the house. She let us in and we started talking to her. She told us she was raised Baptist and that was partly why she was scared to be Mormon, because of what they had taught about us in her church. She then talked about how she knew Vickie (the mom of the Hook family) was a member and just the sweetest thing ever. We offered to give her the lessons and for her to come to the church. She said she felt awkward at the church, because she doesn't know how we do things. We told her we'd meet her at the church on the 22nd (Sean's Birthday!) to show her around and explain things, before she came on Sunday with all the crowds. She was totally for it! We then went out and watched the family train their horses! It was so cool! Don and Kyle (Dad and son) aren't members, but they are the sweetest people and they like for us to come over. I know that they'll get baptized someday, I just really hope I'm around to see it! We're having dinner with them all the Monday after Christmas! It was so cool to see the Lord guiding us!
Last night, the Bishopric gave us some Christmas letters to take to some less-active members. We were in Grand Ronde and so we took them out. We went to a guy's house named Marvin. (He's Virgina's brother, who is the grandma of Jonathan and Sasheene). He let us in and we talked for a bit. at first he said they were happy with their church they were going to, but after we talked for a bit, he said his wife has been looking for a new church to go to and said they'd come next Sunday for the Christmas program. We're so excited! I really feel like this may be what Virginia needs as well as Jonathan and Sasheene to come back to church and to get baptized! So, overall it's been a week of miracles! I think they were there all the time, I just had to find the happy me again to see them. It's been a good process though and an awesome learning experience. It's so much easier to be happy than not. Thank you so much for all of your love and support! I miss you all a lot! We got good news this week! We get to skype our families for Christmas! So that in and of itself is an awesome miracle!
Well, Merry Christmas to you all! I love you!
Love,
Sister Losee
Me and Doris (Alicia's grandma)
Sister @ Zone Conference (King, Jolley, Abbott, Me, Nelson, Glasgow)
Me w/ Steve, Maggie, Allan and Angela! I love this family! I got to help teach Maggie in Corvallis!
Me and Leki! in Corvallis! I miss that girl! My FIRST baptism EVER!!!!
S. Abbott and I w/Santa
Alicia's Baptism
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