weeekly~

Dearest Family-I hope everyone’s Christmas was BEAUTIFUL and BLESSED! I hope you all made it back safely and Santa was able to find you  Christmas on the mission is pretty fun  A couple nights before, I was lying in bed and couldn’t sleep. I rolled over and was looking at the Christmas tree and thought, “It’s already almost over. My only Christmas on the mission and it’s already almost over! Oh no!” So from that moment on I decided to make the last moments the best! Thursday was our missions Christmas Eve devotional. I woke up early and curled my hair. It was fun to spend a little extra time on me  I got dressed up all Christmas like  We got lost on the way and stepped in right as they were introducing the new missionaries! Haha! So we busted through the door and my comp introduced herself. It was pretty funny lol. It was really good. There was a slide show and then we had a lunch in the gym which was decorated with Christmas lights and a tree, behind the tree were a kazillion packages from friends and family for all the missionaries. The last 2 hours was a musical number from each zone (we have 8 zones) so it was all music. It was SO good!  It was so much fun to see ALL the missionaries and catch up on things! We got home and made/decorated cookies for our door man Al. He is so great and fun and was super excited. He is a widower, all alone in NY, away from his ranch in Texas and retired, we thought we could try to cheer him up with some cookies, we think it worked! Then we decided to pull our matrices off and sleep by the xmas tree. When the sisters got home we invited them to join. I asked if any of them had done the Nativity Scene and S. Stephens had, so we decided to do it! Afterwards, we sat in a circle and told xmas stories and traditions! It was a ton of fun! The next morning we opened all our gifts…thank you so much for all of the cards and gifts! Oh my goodness you are all so darn sweet to me! It was so fun to have gifts to open and feel so much love from my incredible family. Thank you so much. We then got ready for Combined District Mtg and the Sr. missionary couple, Elder and Sister Edwards, fixed us a Christmas lunch that was so good! After that we headed to our other Dinner Appt at a members…sooo fulllll! On the way I was able to chat with the fam for a bit and it was INCREDIBLE! HOLY MY COW! I realized that it had been 6 months since I really had last talked to them and then realized how amazing it is to hear voices! After our DA we went to the church and called our families for real and were able to talk for a bit. It was just beyond amazing! I do admit that Saturday was a bit hard to get back in the rut of things, but man, I so look forward to my next call….and my last????....Anywho, as far as work goes, we continue teaching everyone we possibly can. I do admit that things are pretty rough here. Park Slope is just so ritze and stubborn…we are really fighting to find someone who will listen to our message. But, we keep the faith knowing that the Lord has a plan and when we are on His errand and keeping His commandments, that he will provide a way for what He wants to be done. It can be hard and at times you feel like a failure…but that’s when you step back and see the miracles and trust in the Lord. Well, I love you all so so much and can’t thank you enough for all your prayers, love and support. It’s all greatly needed and so much help. Have a happy New Years and I’ll be back next week!Love,Sister Phillips