Wildbreeze in O-Town: 🎉🎉HAPPY NEW YEAR 🎉🎉

Hi mom and dad!

2017 is here! So crazy! I've been in Florida over 2 months! Also crazy! Been gone nearly 3 months! CRAZY. Do you all have any resolutions? I'm no good at resolutions. Goal setting is a struggle sometimes. :P

I've also had a cold, and passed it on to Sister Lamborn. :( Coughing and raspy voices all the days. My lungs felt pretty gross on Thursday, but it's definitely getting better. Hope y'all are starting to feel better. Holiday sicknesses are no fun.

Something that's kinda funny to me... When you talk about stuff at home in your emails, it just makes me happy. I love thinking about snow on the mountains and all the fun stuff you're doing. :) But when you talk about the food places you go, that makes me a little homesick, haha. I want El Pollo Loco. But not the food poisoning.

Thanks for the New Year's Elf presents! I have loved sharing that tradition. I love the bird book! I guessed what it was! :D And we all love the necklaces.

This weeeek!
Monday one of our sort-of investigators gave us dinner. So much food. Their family would be suuuuuch cool members, they just need to put in the effort to find out if the Book of Mormon is true. We shared the Christmas story in the Book of Mormon with her, and she definitely felt the Spirit from that. She just needs to read more on her own. We love them a ton.

Tuesday we watched the Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration film with Sister Jones. I love films about his life. They make me emotional every time. He was such a great man, and truly a prophet of God.

Had dinner/lesson/hung out with the Cruzes again. They're awesome. I recommended books to Jennie. The grandma flat-out told us that she hadn't read the Book of Mormon, and Jennie told us she'd just read to her this time. :)

Wednesday I woke up feeling kind of gross and blah. Sister Lamborn made me go back to sleep. I woke up again at 9, and it just felt so weird. Had breakfast at 9:30... it just felt really odd, haha. We didn't go to service; thought it was a pretty bad plan to be around sick kids when I was sick.

Instead we went out with Sister Fanny! We thought it was just going to be a couple of visiting teaching visits. We should have known better, hah. We cut out things and made cards and were with her the whole day. It was a really productive day, we visited a bunch of people and got to meet a few that we'd never seen before. She just visits everyone. :P

Thursday we had District Meeting, yay! I had jumbled together some notes so I could give a thought on what I learned in personal study. Then Elder James said something about learning by the Spirit, which is exactly what my thought was about. I talked about how sometimes we don't even know that we're being taught by the Spirit. Inspired.

We had lunch with all the Sisters in our District. :)

Then dinner with the Galeany family! Their son is probably around 10 and was so excited to share his Christmas gifts with us. He let us drive his little robots and showed us all the cool things on his Lego sets. :) The dad isn't a member, and he's the one that did all the cooking for us. He's a really cool guy. I attempted to solo the lesson at the end, with some input from the others. Not my favorite thing, heh.

Friday we did a bunch of service! And it was a gorgeous cool day, perfect for working. We helped the Burtons clear branches and vines off of their pool covering. It was actually super fun. Threw all the stuff in the lot behind their house, which apparently borders Disney property. :P And they took us to lunch; I got the most massive burrito.

Helped Sister Najera with some weeding. Also cuddled her dog, Koda. He's an American Eskimo dog, like Savannah. He loves me. :)

Planned a little bit for the week. Mostly I focused on just planning for Saturday. We were getting ready for exchanges, and I was to be the one to lead out the area. So I made the plans for that day.

Sister Lamborn went up to Lake Nona with Sister O'Hara, and I got Sister Yance. She's awesome. :) We stayed up a little too late talking and telling stories.

Saturday, my plans were mostly to find people that we hadn't met before. With the help of Sister Yance, we turned that into 9 lessons! It was such a great day! We got 3 new investigators! I learned a ton about what I'm capable of, especially in leading. I had to make the decisions (which I'm not fond of), had to make the plans, had to talk to people... And it was great! My goal for the exchange was to be more bold and talk more in contacts. I definitely did so. Sister Yance wants me to work on being more confident and assured in what I teach. She says I'm a good teacher.

Sunday was great! Woke up around 12 because people were screaming in the streets and setting off fireworks. It was hard to get to sleep after that. And I was kinda stressed because I'd put off writing a talk until that morning. All 4 of us gave talks on "Discipleship and Service in the Church". I spoke first and shortest, so luckily people probably forgot about mine. :P Sister Egg was making faces at us throughout the meeting. It was great.

We met a less active who had her baby blessed and talked with her for quite a while. She believes in the gospel but has some struggles with the church. Sister Lamborn relates to her so much and was able to address her concerns really well. :)

That evening I got a blessing from Elder James. It was just so cool. I love the priesthood. :)

Today I just woke up feeling so happy! It's been such a great day! I was able to focus on studies more than usual and learned a ton! There's so much happening and so much to look forward to! I'm excited to teach our new people! The gospel is true! God loves us!

Have a fantastic and happy new year! I love you all so much.

Love,

Christine

1.
2. Bentley!
3 and 4. Fat, fat Rona.
5. LOOK HOW BIG THIS BURRITO IS