Central Point Ward is Awesome (12/08/2014)

Hi Mumzy!
Yes, I promise to be nice, observant and compassionate this Christmas :)

The First Presidency Christmas Devotional was pretty great. I really loved President Eyring's talk. We got to go to a member's house to watch it so we were nice and comfy with some chocolate cake :)

Sister Hall and Sister Duenas with the Bishop's family

I will be sending Lynn her card very soon with all the Christmas cards. Also, I plan on sending a package of extra stuff back home since transfers are coming up and its highly unlikely I'll be staying here :(    It's actually interesting, the Ward council is making a small contingency plan for when I go. There are a couple of people that have been able to come back and since I've been in the area longest they've kinda made an attachment to me. The Ward council wants to prepare for a  potential fall out once I'm gone (potentially after Christmas transfers). Especially Nikki, since she might not truly understand why I'm leaving. Anyways, I just really love this Ward. It's been the best Ward I've served in so far. Everyone is so considerate and work together in everything they do. Very good balance of responsibility and hard workers here and tons and tons of love. No matter what happens everyone is taken care of.

ZTM (Zone Training Meeting) and Zone Conference are two different things. ZTM is just missionaries being taught by the Zone leaders and STLs (Sister Training Leaders) and lasts about 3 hrs, whereas Zone Conference is by the Mission Pres, one of his counselors and the APs (Assistants to the President) and lasts about 5-6 hrs. We learned lots of good stuff at the ZTM.....we learned a lot about how to use this season to find tons of people and help others in the Ward come closer to the spirit of Christ, and we are all excited to get the Share the Gift initiative into high speed action :)  Just look on You-Tube and the biggest Ad up top and you can see what it is ;)  Hopefully the missionaries at home have shared it with you and the whole branch.
I made my cookies for the ZTM instead of the apple-cinnamon bites. I'll make that for a Ward Christmas party. Everyone loved the cookies of course. One of the Sisters asked for the recipe, but I said its secret ;)   The cookies came out super good this time. Usually I get about 3 1/2 dozen cookies out of it, but this time I got 57 cookies and they were all pretty good size for a little treat. I have been commissioned to make more for next district meeting and for someone's birthday too.....hahaha.

Cookie batter for the cookies Sister Duenas made for Zone Training Meeting

We got to go to the temple last week!!! It was so nice to go. It was even more special in a small way because the person I went through for was from New York while everyone else's were foreign. Just a little tender mercy at the temple :)

I took tons of pictures that I will make sure to send you soon. 

For Nikki the MS makes her weaker than usual for holding herself up and it prevents her from getting things from her brain to her mouth. She has a hard time speaking, whenever she wants to agree with something she just says "Because I believe in God" and if she hears something, like about the wicked Lamanites, she says "They do not believe in God". She has the most beautiful simple faith I've seen on my mission. The Ward is doing really great in trying to be accommodating and taking care of her :)

There was a Lights Parade in Central Point last week. It was pretty neat. If you keep up with the news stations you might be able to see Sister Hall and I on their news coverage of the parade. There was a camera man right in front of us. We stepped out of the way but we are actually just right off to the right on the corner of the sidewalk.









We've lost some investigators so we have to get out there and build our teaching pool back up. Lots of work ahead of us.

Love you! XOXOXOXOXOXOOOOOOOOOOO

Pooks