It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas a little late

On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day the temperature spiked very unusually -- at one point it hit 20*C -- and then yesterday we got covered in another blanket of snow and it is currently -11*C. This was my one chance to have a white Christmas and it felt like I was back in Carlsbad. The only day that I actually really wanted it to be cold, I didn't need my coat. We went caroling in short sleeves. Oh well. We have plenty of cold now.

Fortunately, I've been in training my entire life to feel the magic of Christmas even without snow, and Christmas was indeed magical. 

 I got to skype with my family :) There are a lot of people in my family. They kept having to shift and give different people turns to see my beautiful face. Highlights: Madeleine sang me a song about Christmas that had hand motions and everything. As far as I can tell my family still thinks I'm funny, and (thank goodness) they're still funny, too. 

Last Tuesday we had a mission-wide Christmas devotional, which was absolutely wonderful. I really love President and Sister Patrick. Most of the devotional was musical numbers performed by missionaries and Sister Patrick read to us out of Luke. I got to see my MTC district again, which was way fun :) At the end, when President and Sister Patrick wished us all a Merry Christmas individually, President assured me that he hasn't forgotten about me haha and I told him that he's welcome to keep forgetting about me, I've been very happy in Terrebonne with Sister Schmuhl for my whole mission thus far.

This week we're passing off a few of the people we teach to the Elders because we're making more of an effort to, as sisters, only teach women, and have the Elders only teach men. This will significantly thin out our teaching pool, but it's definitely a good direction to be taking. So, this week we will be concentrating on finding new friends! We are going to talk to everyone and invite people to take part in the good news of the gospel, because we love them. I love my calling :)

I love my Lord and Savior. This season, I have enjoyed nothing more than talking about Him all day every day and having the opportunity to share the joy of His birth. Going forward, I am excited to give Him greater focus and always learn more about his life, without waiting for it to be Christmas again.

Merry Christmas, I love you all, mais le Seigneur encore plus :)
Souvenez-vous qui vous etes,

Soeur Lonas