I have to say hola because this is my last day working in the Spanish equipe. We got our transfer calls this morning, finally. Sister Metro is being transferred to Dijon in France, and so I am staying here and Sister Cutler is coming tomorrow from Grenoble. Word on the street is she is pretty great so I am excited to work with her. Sister Dix was her companion in Grenoble, and she said that she loves the Beatles, so I am already confident that we are going to be good friends. Neither of us really speak enough Spanish though, so we will just be working in the Salève ward here, focusing on the Frenchy speakers. AND we don't have very many investigators in that ward right now, so we are going to spend a lot of time finding. I am so ready to tear it up this transfer. New transfer, new year, new companion, new haircut, new goals, and new boots.... I am a new woman and I am pumped up to do a lot of good stuff the next 5 weeks. Yeah!
I am so glad you got that package so quickly! And I am SO glad I didn't send it from here because it would have been ridiculously expensive and it probably would have taken a lot longer to get there. But I am glad you like the calendar and the ornament. Aren't the pictures on the calendar beautiful? I think a lot of them are more on the German-speaking part, but we can still go there sometime! And I hope you like the chocolate!
So next Tuesday I have a legality appointment in Lyon, so I think we are probably taking our preparation day on a different day, maybe Monday or Wednesday. I am not really sure yet, but if you do not get an email from me on Tuesday, that is why. But we will see.
I am attaching some pictures of my Christmas festivities. I didn't take as many as I should have, but you will get the highlights. There is one of me on Christmas morning that I took, but I probably won't send it to you just yet because it is super unflattering. You can see it in 13 months...haha. Anyways, the first one is of me and Gladys. We met with her yesterday, and she still doesn't really know what she is going to do. She has to be out of her apartment by Thursday, but she hasn't found another apartment here yet and she hasn't gotten a plane ticket back to Brazil. I would love for her to stay here because I seriously love this woman, but I just pray that she will be able to do whatever will be best. I will keep you updated for sure.
The second picture on there is Christmas Eve with the Allenbach family. They are incredible. The man on the end is a man in the ward that they invited over for dinner as well. It was such a lovely evening... it reminded me a little bit of our activities on Christmas Eve, but way lower key. Let's just say there was no dancing nor Mannheim Steamroller involved. But they were so nice to have us over. The next picture is while we were waiting for the train to go to the mission home Christmas morning. Normally the train up there goes every half hour, but we didn't realize that on Christmas it was just every hour, so we were waiting there for awhile. But we had a lovely time still! The next three pictures are at the mission home. Sister Metro decided to wear my awful Christmas sweater haha. And then we got Elder Whittaker to put it on. Sometimes (most of the time) we call him Rolf because he looks like Rolf from the Sound of Music. We still haven't gotten him to sing 'I am 17, going on 18...' One day he will. We gave Paola these silly little popper things that had New Years stuff in them, and the next picture is us sporting that stuff. It was a lovely Christmas evening, just hanging out at the institute, talking to you all, eating raclette with my companions and Paola, and playing Yahtzee. I loved it. Oh, can I just say that being a missionary at Christmas is great. So many people have given us chocolate and cookies and stuff. It's the best! Haha. Don't worry, I love being a missionary at Christmas for a lot of other reasons too. Aaaand the last picture is our cute little French class. I have taken over teaching that since Sister Metro is leaving, and those people are hilarious. Hermano Ortiz, the little Ecuadorian man in the front (he is a member) fell asleep during class yesterday haha. What a spaz. Speaking of the Spanish ward, on Sunday, the Bishop asked me to give the opening prayer, and I said a really good prayer. It was my longest one yet (only like 4 sentences instead of 3 haha) but everyone says my Spanish is getting so good. They are just being nice haha.
So I don't have a ton to fill you in on since our wonderful conversation on Christmas. It was so so good to talk to you, even though it went by way too fast. Mom are you feeling any better? That is no fun being sick. Hopefully that medicine will help. Do y'all have fun plans for the rest of Christmas break? New Years? When do you start school again? With this new year coming up I have been thinking a lot about goals and just being determined to become a better person. We talked with Soeur Lehmann yesterday about spiritual goals. I think a huge thing to remember when setting and working towards spiritual goals is to involve the Spirit. Because really, that is the only way that we can learn and grow and progress spiritually. We can lose weight or do a lot of new years resolutions without the Spirit, but it is essential to seek that inspiration as you are determining where you ought to improve and how. I don't know if that makes sense? But it is just something I have been thinking a lot about lately.
Well, next week I will have a better email for you hopefully, with a lot more updates, etc. Just know that I love you a lot and I am thinking about you and praying for you a ton. Have a great week! I LOVE YOU!
Love,
ALLIE
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