Fun things

MERRY CHRISTMAS! It is the MOST wonderful time of the year! It's been a great week and a half. We have some very solid game plans in the works with our members and we are working out the kinks in execution, so it has been exciting. The Oakridge Ward is emphasizing the Ward Mission Plan, and taking it out to all of the members. We are responsible for teaching the whole Ward the plan, in their homes, and committing them to doing it. We have it all set up so it's kind of like we have 6 rounds. Round one we share a message and they commit to adding one missionary effort into their life such as praying daily for missionary opportunities, making their calling an opportunity for missionary work etc. Then when we follow up we commit them to something new. The long term goal is that they set a date as a deadline to have found someone willing to take the lessons from us.
In these areas there is really very little opportunity to find people to teach other than through the Ward members so we are excited to increase the missionary spirit here and help make their desires to
find people to teach a reality. It's a lot of groundwork that will take a while to produce results, but it's exciting.

In the Silva Valley Ward they don't have the same Ward mission plan, so we have proposed to the Ward mission leader that we visit members with him, share a message, and then create a game plan with them. Lots of people in that Ward know people they are working with, so we are helping them think of what the next step is for the people they know. The members here are honestly so awesome, I am always amazed when I got into their homes. I always thought there was no family as good as my family but it turns out there are tons, they are just all in El Dorado Hills, California! :) haha.

This week we had our mission Temple Conference. It basically consisted of a temple session, a  musical number from each zone (half the zones one day and half the other), some words from  President and Sister Jardine, and a slideshow of all the baptisms for the past year. They recorded all the musical numbers so I am going to get a recording at some point of myself playing the piano. It's been fun on my mission to be useful with that skill. Thanks for making me learn piano, Mom. :). It was nice, and always fun to see missionaries that I used to serve with. A few hours later we did  service caroling at the Folsom Zoo. They put up a bunch of lights and trees and people come to look.
It was a lot of fun, people loved seeing us there singing. It was sort of weird though because tons of people took pictures and videos so it sort of feels like being famous, in the most uncomfortable of
ways. My image is in the hands of so many random people. Anyway, it was a blast and we met some cool people and I saw some members from a previous area so that was super fun.

Friday we had dinner with the Edwards--they are related to Heath and Hannah Edwards and Ruby and Dennis Edwards that we knew in Preston. That was a fun connection too. Everyone here knows of Preston, it's surprising. Mostly it's because of Napoleon Dynamite though ha. Saturday we went to visit some members, and all of our visits were great. The people here are honestly just so nice. At one house I laughed and laughed. They wanted us to try their "Rock Solid" machine. Same concept as shake weights. It's something that looks kind of like a scale but it shakes you as various speeds. The idea is even if you aren't moving your body, as long as it is moving you can still tone your muscles. Standing on it I felt like all of my insides were going to jiggle out. It was too funny, I couldn't stop laughing. Not sure that was the most dignified thing I have done as a missionary but it was fun! At church on Sunday since we cover two wards we got to watch both Christmas programs. Very talented people here. One ward had a number from the Ward choir, from the primary, and from the young  men's and young women's. It was really nice. The other Ward did a full blown cantata. It was crazy. There were several non members there so that was cool.

Monday and Tuesday we had exchanges, so I was in the Folsom 2nd and 4th wards with Hermana Ka'a'a. She is from Maui and she's really cool. It was a good exchange. I love when they are real. In the morning before we exchanged we did service cleaning the temple. That was really cool. The Elders members also work at the temple and they took us up into the spire. We got to see the room behind the glass windows and if we had wanted to we could have climbed all the way up and stood right under Moroni. I felt disinclined to get that high...it was kind of scary. So I just went high enough to see the windows from the inside and to see the long weighted pole that keeps Moroni balanced. It was pretty cool. Tuesday we had a lesson with a non member that we didn't plan on at all. We just had a dinner appointment with a family and a friend of one of the kids came over while we were still  there. It was cool because it helped us meet out goals for a member present lesson. Sometimes it feels pointless to even set a goal for that because we don't have any investigators so it is unlikely to have a lesson with a member present when we don't have any lessons. Just further evidence it is not  pointless, if we do our best and aim high the Lord can provide. Wednesday we had a great day.
We got a lot done and it felt awesome! We went caroling at the zoo again and it was pretty awful. The other sisters couldn't come with us so I was the only person in the group that could sing much. Sister
Erickson does fine if she can hear me, but eventually we all ended up singing in different keys. It was painful, but also hilarious. It was still fun! After caroling we went to a members house. The mom is
from Ecuador and she fed us empanadas. They were good! It was fun and fulfilled my dream of trying empanadas.

For Christmas Eve pday started at noon. We had a district lunch to kick off the long pday so that was fun. Then Sister Erickson and I went to a members house to make cookies to take to the Zone gathering that we had that evening. We went grocery shopping and then headed to the Mormon Center for the Zone activity. On the way there we got a call from the Mullen's, the members Sister Erickson and I have both previously lived with in Elk Grove. They dropped by the church to give us Christmas bags of goodies. It was so so nice of them. Seriously, Northern California has the best people. For the zone activity we watched the movie McFarland, USA. It was good! We had fun. It is hilarious though watching a full length movie for the first time in over a year. I was getting so antsy sitting there. The elders were too, most of them were standing and pacing by the end. Also, it had the tiniest bit of romance in it (a couple of teenagers held hands *gasp*!) and we were all freaking out  haha. It's funny because we still see that stuff all the time but somehow it is different when you're all watching it together. It was fun, and President and Sister Jardine provided popcorn too. It was a good
night.

I know it sounds like all we do is party, but we definitely work! Just this week was full of fun stuff! And it's more interesting to write about than say, tracting. Though I love that too. We did finally get in touch with Billur (the lady from Turkey). She has been in the hospital with pneumonia so no wonder she hasn't been answering the phone! She's still recovering, hopefully we will get to meet with her soon.

Today for Christmas we did our own devotional in our room and read through the things you can learn from the Christmas story article in the December New Era. Then we opened our packages. Sister Erickson got some games that we played. She also got some every flavor jelly beans but they are a little different. In the same box they have two jelly beans that look alike, but are opposite favors  (the white ones are either coconut, or baby wipes as an example). We put a twist on Uno where when a Draw 2 or Draw 4 card is played you also draw either one or two jelly beans. We had fun. They had a skunk flavored one that is absolutely horrible. I also got stinky socks. Bleh. It was a fun twist  though. Later today we are going caroling with other missionaries as service, and then we have dinner with the members we live with. So it's been a nice Christmas! Love you all, hope you are
having the best of holidays!

Sister Robinson