Danielle's December e-mails

We loved talking to Danielle at Christmas! We got the whole family on the phone using cell phones and conference calling. It was great! To hear her voice and the excitement she has for her mission was wonderful. Here are some excerpts from her e-mails in December:

12/31/08--HAPPY 2009! It was so fun to talk to everyone and connect everyone and lose everyone again. I think it was just nice to hear everyone's voices most of all. I have heard actually that there have been some missionaries here who called home and did a web cam type thing, so it will be soon maybe.. Christmas dinner with Mama was really good, we had some good traditional food, but also some good Jamaican cookin. The members take VERY good care of us here, I feel like I have obtained about 6 or 7 sets of mothers and fathers here in Mississauga. haha, one of them saw my holey socks and told me that those would not be okay and gave us money to get new ones. oh how i love them.

I liked reading the letters from the other missionaries. Even though i know none of them, it's good to hear about the success and learning tools they are having and doing, because those could also be very useful here as well! So i liked those a lot.

I can't believe it's 2009 already.. Our new years was pretty quiet. We had to be inside our apartment by 6:00pm so we had dinner with a member and went home to pj's and some good games of LIFE and Clue.. and new years pictures of course, until we went to bed.. So a new year, new January, new everything! I can't believe how fast this transfer (6 weeks) has gone by. it's seems like just yesterday it was the beginning of December and I was thinking that Christmas was forever away, but lo and behold it has come and gone just like that!

12/17/08--i am still blown away by how much god knows us and what we need.. just enough to put a little smile on your face.. (or a really big one! haha)

12/10/08--Well, we had transfers this week and i stayed in the same area, but I got a new companion. Her name is Sister Hutch from Sandy, Utah. She has been out just 3 months longer than me and is now my follow-up trainer. Things have for sure changed though. She is super nice and sweet and loving to everyone. She is very good at seeing the good in absolutely everything. On the other hand I kind of feel like her trainer at times. She doesn't like to OYM people which is really wierd for me because sis Arthur and I did that all the time. she will just stand there and look at us, but she is getting better! I'm trying to make a game out of it so we talk to more people. I kind of have to be her motivator to walk a little faster inbetween doors and stuff like that, but she will be good for me.

I still love tracting and contacting people, oh yes, and don't worry that we went tracting when it was -18 C one day.. ya it was FREEZING! but i was okay. i actually only wear my boots and one pair of thicker stockings and my skirts and my legs are fine. I think it's because I have a long coat and high boots though. I think it is becoming my favorite thing to do here. Now, if my teaching could just improve. haha I know the material, the words just don't come out as simply as i would like them to. The Christmas Zone Conference is tomorrow, and i guess here we get to watch a movie so it will be a surprise as to which one that will be. I am excited for Christmas here. It will be a little wierd not to be at home, but the members here are amazing and will be taking care of us.

Oh, funny story, well not superly funny, but entertaining (maybe) So last Saturday was the ward christmas party which was a lot of fun, and probably half or more of the ward got sick because one of the turkey's went bad.. haha no one at my table got sick, so happy for that because my investigators came and sat on my table, but the next day the elders said they were all sick the night before (sick meaning diareaha haha) and about 80 people were missing from church and probably half the people there were sick as well.. Oh man, i laughed a little..

Ya know, i was in a lesson teaching about Job through the childrens version with the pictures and a line stood out to me. 'men must trust god no matter what happens.' and i decided that I need to do that.