A Christmas Carol

Hello hello!!!

Merry Christmas Eve!! I hope y'all are doing well and have some fun holiday plans!! It's been a while since I've done a more detailed weekly update and a lot happened this week so we're gonna give it a shot again!

On Monday we played a super fun game for pday activity(: Instead of normal spoons, we played "ultimate spoons". Use caution, if you plan to try this at home clear any breakable furniture and have band aids on hand. Ultimate spoons is much like regular spoons where you sit in a circle and pass around cards till you get a set of four. Instead of setting spoons in the middle of the table though, you hide the spoons in another room and you have to race to get to the room and find them. It was pretty intense. I get to claim bragging rights and say I won!! (woot woot!!) One of the Elders got a little beat up, band aids truly are necessary.

Tuesday we had a video meeting and basically replanned the idea for the video. Im not really sure how this one will end up, transfers also threw a wrench in things a bit, our camera elder got transferred out to Montpelier. We'll see how it turns out!! We ended up filming most of Zone Conference to use, which I will get too later.

We had some we had some awesome lessons this week! We met with a guy named Mike, and he seems promising. We met him at a baptism, his friend's sons were baptized. That was a few weeks ago, and we finally got to have a lesson with him. We talked about Heavenly Father and how we are literally his children. I think it touched him to hear how connected we actually are to God. It was a very sweet lesson and we'll be meeting with him again(:

We also met with the Vaughan family, their son Cort is on date for baptism January 4th! It was a good lesson, they are so supportive! We had invited them to read the first lesson as a family to prepare themselves and they actually did it! It was so cool!! I'm excited for them!

Thursday was Transfer day/Zone Conference, which was awesome. Zone Conference was a special Christmas conference for us(: we started out listening to some songs preformed by some women in President Southward's ward in Highland. It was all very well exectuted and their messages went along with what we were talking about first, which was the prophet Joseph Smith. President followed their performaces with a presentation about the prophet, which was also very inspiring. It always touches my heart to think about what Joseph Smith edured for the sake of the gospel. The amount of suffering he endured, along with the pain caused to his family has always confirmed to me the truth of his words. No good man would go through such torment and see not only his family, but his friends put through so much persecution as well, for something false. I know Joseph Smith was a true prophet, and that we have true prophets called of God on the earth today.

Later during the Zone Conference we helped with a service project and assembled bikes. It was pretty sweet, later families came to pick them up for their children for christmas. After the service project we went back to the Palace Playhouse, (a theater in town) to have a nice dinner and watch the show, "A Christmas Carol". It really stood out to me to see how blind Scrooge was to his own actions. I think we are so blind sometimes to our own actions and the feelings they can hurt. It made me pause and think a little more about how our actions really do speak volumes. I also loved seeing Scrooge go back to "Christmas past" and seeing both the good and bad actions of his past. It was a poignant reminder of the history of our actions and how important it is to be proud of our actions and to do what we can to make things right when we make a mistake. Lots of good messages to be reminded of. And it was also pretty sweet to get to watch a musical on my mission(:

We got to see the McCabe boys this week, and they are so excited about the Gospel! We stopped by on Saturday and they were so ready to have a lesson! They had their scriptures out and everything. They are such sweet kids and hopefully we can see them baptized. There may be some legal permission to wait on, but they'll get there someday.

Lastly, on Sunday it was super fun to go to all the Christmas programs. We were at 3 of the 4. And we sang in all of them. I actually sang a solo bit for the last one which was fun. Later that night we caroled as well so it was a day of song haha. Made for a good night(:

Anyway, I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and enjoy some time with your family and friends. This is a special time of year to remember Christ and the love he has for us.

I love you all!
Love, Sister Jensen