Dios Con Nosotros

FELIZ NAVIDAD!!!

Hahaha our mission president changed our pday to tuesday sooooo sorry this is a day late! But I hope yall had the best christmas! 

Gonna catch yall up on last two weeks! Already love Jasper, even though it don't got a crumbl or a chick fil a, it's still just a cutie little town with real wack weather, today (christmas) was high 50s and raining lol, was in my element fr, we went on a walk this morning and got soaked, I loved it. Also made crepes this morning, hna jackson is a literal Chef, those things were amazing, got ourselves sick on sugar because you gotta do it right, and then opened presents and talked to fam. 

But, im getting way ahead of myself oops, so these past two weeks have been absolute craziness, meals almost every night which helps me with getting to know our ward, I love them so much! We've been door knocking all over and having lots of great lessons, especially with our friends jexabel, dixon, and their kids. They are my absolute favorites, the first time I met them I mentioned how much I love arepas and we come back and she's got em hot and ready for us, made me want to cry tears of happiness. But they also just pay such good attention during lessons and ask questions and love to participate, Jexabel wants to read in the Book of Mormon, she's really busy, but after our last lesson she made us schedule our next one with more time so she could read it! She's come to church, loved the class we had and wants to come again, it just makes me so happy to see her acting on the desire. We visited them yesterday for la noche buena to give them cookies and they left their party to just talk with us and ended up leaving with a whole bag of food, they're just such good people with such good hearts.

Ok other things, we had zone conference christmas edición last week, it was a lot more chill, just getting together and watching mr. Kruegers christmas (thanks mom and dad for making me watch it all those years, I love it now), and a little craft where we made clothespin ornaments to look like our companions (Elder gongs idea, also accidentally painted my comps face the exact color as the wood), me and Hermana Jackson played what child is this medley with me on piano and her on clarinet, and then we all got to share scriptures from our Christmas Book of Mormon reading as a mission. I shared 2 Nephi 26:25 "Behold, doth he cry unto any, saying: Depart from me? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; but he saith: Come unto me all ye ends of the earth, buy milk and honey, without money and without price." I have a testimony that Jesus is the Lord of Abundance, it doesn't matter what we lack because He will make all the difference all the time, our weaknesses are made strengths in Him, we all belong in His fold, we are never too far gone from Him, He is always there for each of us.

The rest of last week was spent wrapping presents with Sister Diekmann (her first name is Carynne but it sounds just like my name so it throws me off every time lol), more door knocking, lessons, weekly planning, practicing with Sister Scott for our musical number for church, and then dinner with the Lloyd's who have nativities from like every part of the world its so cool. Christmas eve we had church and somehow me and Hermana Jackson ended up running the whole christmas program. We took turns doing hymns and leading and then had our musical number, but it went well! Except for the part when we were supposed to sing the third verse of a song and we all sang the first (I was leading hahaha) and then just ended and were so confused oops. We rang bells at walmart for the Salvation army and serenaded people with christmas songs, then we delivered cookies to a bunch of friends and ended up with a bag of tamales hahaha, went to the Blands (bishops) house for Christmas eve dinner and it was so fun! The weather was so nice so we were out playing football with the boys and the elders and bishop, and then we did a Journey dinner where we ate things mary and joseph would've eaten on their way to Bethlehem with candles. 

The rest of that night we unwrapped gifts (sister bland actually got us gifts it was the sweetest thing ever) and ate homemade Christmas cookies and played games, it honestly just felt like home cry. I don't know if yall have heard of happy salmon, but that was the craziest game I've ever played, we were just screaming and running around the table and it was so much fun, and then we played nertz and boggle (I still got it mom hahaha). 

Today we got to go spend Christmas at the Diekmanns house helping cook dinner and make pies. We just talked and I helped their daughter build her entire barbie dream house, yall would've been impressed. Me and sister diekmann talked for like 30 minutes about Taylor swift, she's been a fan since she was like 16 so mucho respect.

My little spiritual thought for yall!!! So the night we ate at the Blands, the elders gave the spiritual thought and we watched the nativity video and then everyone was supposed to say their favorite name of Jesus Christ. I said Emmanuel because it means God with us. Christ was born to this earth and lived a humble life so He could meet us at our level and know us perfectly. It's beautiful to me that God would send His Son so that He could be with us always, and I know that He is, every step of the way.

"Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us." Matthew 1:23

I love you all!!! God loves you even more!!!

- hermana Neil

Photos!!!

- cutie huntingburg

- district pday in Santa Claus (yeah it's a town lol) 

- sunset 

- my FIRST bike day of the mission 

- Jesus car

- zone conference pic 

- ringing da bells ft. jasper elders

- cookie deliveries