It has been freezing cold

Picture taken on my 6th month day of my mission...I don't know if I look older, but I feel older.

Well hey there! It seems like you all had a great week! I'm sure that you missed the life of the party at the cabin this week. Just kidding. We find out tonight about transfers. At my last interview President told me that he was keeping me here unless I told him that I couldn't handle it anymore or the Lord told him otherwise. Well, I have this gut feeling that I may be leaving. I could be completely wrong but just to be safe it might be a good idea to send things to the mission home this week. I'll write you a quick letter and let you know as soon as I find out.

So I was kind of surprised to hear that El Paso weather has been all over the news. It is true, it has been freezing cold. I did not expect to get this cold on my mission but boy was I wrong. It's started to warm up and is about 60 today. I'm very happy about that! It's funny because people here don't know how to react to this weather. No one left their houses and they didn't want us to come into their houses, you never know what the missionaries will drag in. Needless to say, the work was nearly as effective this week than it has been in the past.

This week has been a bit frustrating to me. I know where discouragement comes from but it seems like everything that we've worked towards this week failed. Hopefully we'll be able to turn everything around this week.

On Saturday our English ward Relief Society had a Christmas activity. We were "filling our buckets with the spirit of Christmas." It was really special. When we got there everyone was given a cute little Christmas bucket. They had 7 short Christmas stories that were read and with each story we got a little representation of it to put in our bucket. The Spirit was really strong and it just made me even more excited for Christmas! I'm going to do my best to make this years Christmas the best. Our recent convert Mary inspired me on Saturday. As you know, she is blind. She really wanted to come to the activity and instead of asking anyone for a ride she walked. That's right, it was freezing cold and she walked like 5 miles to get to the church. She had never walked to the church before but she just pictured in her mind how to get there and an hour later she was there without any problem. Amazing huh?

It got me thinking, often we become complacent about being members of the Church. We take everything for granted but she doesn't. She does whatever she can to take part in the Church because she can see the blessings that it gives her. I want to be more like her.

I really enjoyed the Christmas devotional last night! We watched it in Spanish so I didn't quite get as much out of it as I would have liked but that's ok. I still understood some and was still able to feel the spirit. No matter if you understand the language or not, the prophet is the prophet and you can still feel that. And the choir was beautiful!


Thanks Renee the traveling pants made it to El Paso...

Well, I sure love you all! Thanks for all of your love and support! I really appreciate it and need it! Have a great day and remember the true reason for this season! Let Christ come into your hearts!
Love you lots! Hermana Melissa Anderson