December 8th

Dear Family,

This week was incredible. I'm still in paradise I feel like. As I was watching the Christmas Devotional last night, I felt the Spirit so strong--especially with the music. The choir is so incredibly powerful live, and sometimes I forget that. I know that Heavenly Father sent us His Son so we can be families together forever with Him. He saved me. And He does every day. I am working on sharing a more powerful testimony, but it's still in the process, so I just want to share what I can of how I feel about the Savior. I know He love each of us so much. I love what Elder Faust said, "How many drops of blood did He shed for me?" I feel like there were sometimes not happy endings to the stories they were sharing yesterday. And sometimes I remember how excited I was when I came out to see miracles and blessings unfold for my family. But I realize now that those blessings won't be unfolded until the next life. Every moment that we have to spend in our own personal Gethsemanes Heavenly Father uses for our good. His goal is for us to have joy with Him forever and be with our families.

God uses simple things to bring about His great and eternal purposes (Alma 37). He sent a baby and then waited. I loved that quote yesterday.

On a different note I had a lot of unusual things happen this week. We ran beside our float for an hour in a parade. I guess up here in the North they do things a little differently. We were supposed to hand out candy to the kids, but we just had to throw it at them while half jogging/half running to catch up. It was so much fun. I was laughing pretty much the whole time. Also two different people handed us anti. One came disguised as a Christmas card. Speaking of which, I was able to see a little how I have grown. A woman started reading a pamphlet to us when I was on an exchange with my STL. She's never really served around anti, but I felt so relaxed as I simply told the woman we are here to find people who are ready to be baptized, and I have set aside my family and friends and university and dating to do so. I want to bring people to the Savior. I told her that if she's not ready, then we'd like to use our time finding those who are and if she knew anyone who was we would be happy to go see them. I felt so good. As she continued to talk, we chose to simply walk away. I feel like I've grown so much!

Also we've been saying what we're grateful for every time a logging truck passes us. There is one road where it's CONSTANT. If you want to feel the Spirit, start saying what you're grateful for!! It has been the best.

Also our CO monitor went off in the middle of the night. Sister Manaso now wants to marry a fireman hahaha. She had never seen one before. It was perfect though, because we couldn't study in our house, so we went to our RS president's house (she owns the cabin and lives across the lawn) and studied with her niece Kamalani. We invited her to join us and it was the best personal study and companion study ever. We shared our testimonies of serving a mission. :)

Also we're teaching an 11-year-old named Connor. His mom is our Ward Mission Leader's cousin. Last night his whole family was over at our WML's house and Connor showed us all of the deer that he's shot on his mom's phone. He shot his first deer when he was 9. NINE. When he was ten he shot a black bear. And last week he shot a buck. His dad was so proud. Bahaha Connor told us he's giving up hockey this season to "focus on his hunting." (Only in Canada) He wants to be baptized though and his mom is really excited about him learning about the gospel.

So I'm pretty sure that's it. Love you all and have the best week ever!

Sister Thomson

Our cabin