Missionary Christmas

Hey Everyone!

 Hope Everyone had a fabulous Christmas and that you enjoyed time with family and friends. Christmas in the mission field was special. We started the week by making sugar cookies for our investigators and decorating them as a zone (and with Elders around of course a majority of them were eaten). Who can forget our P-day sports madness, which ended in an intense game of signs. We went through the week contacting and had an awesome lesson over the phone with an investigator named Muise. He is in Mexico right now and will be back sometime next month. He told us he read Moroni's challenge in (Moroni 10 :3-5) and that he wants to keep reading the Book of Mormon to know if its true. My comp was jumping on the couch (like Tom Cruise) out of excitement :)

We had Christmas Conference with the missionaries this week and that was loads of fun! We had a white elephant gift exchange, and each district sang a musical number we chose "What Child is this?" In between the musical numbers President and Sister Cannon spoke and we had a carol sing-along which with tons of missionaries was definitely a good time. The conference was in Ontario which meant I was back to my homeland (Payette is about a 5 min drive from there). It was good to see all the missionaries who I served with in my zone last transfer and it felt like a big reunion. The trio was together again which was super fun:) I loved Presidents message he talked about how the lord answers our prayers. It was an awesome and simple message. 

The next day we went over Alisha and her parents house where we made more sugar cookies. We got to go caroling with them the next day. We got to teach about the people in the Americas who were waiting for the sign of Christ. (3 Nephi Chapter 1) She has three kids who are all in their teens and they were a bit reluctant to make cookies at first but we told them they wouldn't be able to eat any if they didn't make some! That got them moving :) We made fudge and Dollie bars too, to go on the plates. The next night we went caroling with Alisha and her family in probably 14 degrees and it had just snowed the night before, but we went out singing "Jingle Bells" and "We wish you a Merry Christmas" it was a great time. We ended the night going to dinner and reading Luke 2 with a sweet family in the ward who are empty nesters. 

Then came Christmas which was jammed packed with stuff. Breakfast with a family in our ward and they gave us the cutest stockings for Christmas that say "Sister" on them! We then went to watch a movie and have lunch with another family in the ward. They have a movie theater and which would make watching any movie fun, we ended up watching "The Emma Smith Story" and I zonked out from a food coma. But it's okay because I had already seen the movie. We went to dinner and ate again and we had some much fun at the members house they have two of their grand kids living with them and they were super excited about everything they got for Christmas. They made us pillowcases for Christmas :) Of course who can forget Christmas Skype; super great to see the family again and of course laugh uncontrollably . Saturday we had an awesome lesson with a member who just got out of jail about two months ago. he is 21 and has had a hard past but he has been coming back to church and we taught him about making the sacrament a more influential part of our Sabbath and the sacrament meeting itself. We came into church on Sunday and he was dressed different then his jeans and shirt. He sat in the pew with a white shirt, black pants and tie. He told us the night before he felt like he needed to get some church clothes and we were so proud of him!

But in all the fun things this week one of the best miracles happen Sunday night. When we had about 20 mins left before we needed to get home. You always hear about those stories of missionaries going to the right place in the last minutes they have in the day and that happen to us. We were driving and I had the impression that we needed to see a family. I told my companion and she said the same name popped into her head a few minutes before but hadn't said anything because she wasn't sure. We decided that we would stop by in the last 20 minutes we had. We went in and the parents were still up talking they didn't really know us that well as missionaries so we preceded to talk to them about being a missionary and serving in Caldwell. The husband was just recently baptized and they have been struggling a little bit. We asked if we could share a message with them. We taught from Doctrine and Covenants Section 50:40-42 as I read the verses I heard crying and I looked up to see the mom in tears. When i finished reading I said to them "We don't know exactly why we were suppose to come here, but Heavenly Father is truly aware of you both and as representatives of Jesus Christ we can testify of that" As the words left my mouth tears filled my eyes and my chest felt like it exploded I felt nothing but love for these two parents. I knew in that moment that the was how the Savior and Heavenly Father felt for them. I'm grateful for moments like these, that truly are miracles. It is such a privilege to minster to the lords children and follow the direction in which he gives us through inspiration.  We both left the house and sat in the car for a minute soaking it all in. We ended the night in gratitude for Heavenly Father trusting us to meet the needs of his children that night. That's contributes to what its all about. Everyday in the field listening to where the Lord will lead us to go and testifying of the love that he has for his children. Have a great week! and Happy New Year Everyone :)

All My Love,

Sister Cleveland

This photo is a picture of one of our investigators who loves to play basketball he wants to play in the NBA. So we played with him the other day and we played HORSE and did all these trick shots it was tons of fun. We'll he saw these american flags in the closet and so we pretended it was the last 10 secs in the Olympic final game in Taiwan in 2030 and he had the ball. I was the announcer and waving the flag and he had a red,white and blue ball. My companion and I kept saying "Do it for America!" He shot it and made it it was a big deal :)