12/27/2012
Dear family,
It
feels that we are having a heat wave today!! We have been at -8 for the
past four or five days and today we are at about +12. yeah!!! You know
you've been in Canada for too long when.... :)
I was in such a rush and in shock with transfers last
week that I forgot to wish everyone a very merry Christmas!!!! I cannot
believe we are less than a week away for the new year. 2013? When did
that happen? For Sunday I was a little bummed because our wards meet at
9 and 9:30 at two separate buildings. So, we were only able to attend
one sacrament service. Thankfully they are going to 11 and 1 next year
so we will be able to go to both. The songs and talks were great. I
always love the Sunday before Christmas, it is so nice to spend so much
time focused on the true meaning of Christmas.
Then...the feasting began. Oh my. Let me back up.
First of all on Christmas eve Sister Little woke up sick. She felt well
enough to go to district meeting...after a bunch of layers and a
blanket where put on her. We read stories from missionary's experience
on their missions at Christmas time and talked about Christmas
traditions. The Elders wanted to go to Chili's for lunch. Sister
Little and I didn't have anything since we had two dinners lined up for
that evening. Our first dinner was with a family that lost their
father/husband about a year ago...or this is their first Christmas
without him. They gathered up the children/grandchildren and acted out
the nativity and sang Christmas songs. We then headed over to the
Palmer's for our second dinner, but mostly for dessert. Again, tons of
people were there, but it was nice to just sit and chat. We then headed
to our last stop by where someone gave us a whack load of tamales
(pardon my Spanish spelling). We hurried and got to bed in great
anticipation for Christmas.
We both were startled when our phone went off at little
after 6 am (our alarm is set for 6:20). It was our member calling to
confirm our breakfast appointment. The member we live with invited us
to have breakfast with her. Yes, two breakfasts within 45 minutes of
each other. Not fun. But something that is fun is how diverse Calgary
is. Our second breakfast was with Sister Simpson. She was born in
Jamaica, moved to England and then moved to Canada. We headed off to
lunch, which at this time the thought of food made both of us want to
cry. The family that invited us over is a recent convert/less
active/part member family. They are from Sri Lanka. We thought there
would be a lot of people there so we would not have to worry about
eating too much. Nope, there were two other families that were there
and only one of them sat down at ate. We hardly ate anything and we
felt terrible, but we just could not eat any more. We headed off to our
dinner appointment where we were able to Skype!!! yeah!!! It was so
nice to talk to everyone. It really helped me feel at peace and more
rejuvenated for the day. We thankfully didn't eat until around 4:30 or 5
pm. We headed to another members house who offered to feed us, but we
told them no. I was convinced that I would not be able to eat for the
rest of the week. Christmas was wonderful, especially to see the small
children get so excited about everything.
Yesterday was Boxing Day (Canada's wanna be version of
Black Friday). We gathered up the other sisters and headed up to a mall
which was about 20 minutes away. We were getting closer to the mall
when we hit a really bad traffic jam. We thought an accident had
happened....but after being in the traffic for an hour we realized no.
This indeed was Boxing Day traffic. Oh my it was hilarious to see how
the Canadians were not able to merge properly. We had a good laugh
about it. The sales were not that great, but we had a great shopping
trip. We went to a men's work store and got some more heavy duty cold
gear. I got mittens, really thick socks and a thermal undershirt. I
may not freeze as much now.
Guess what we have today? Two dinners!! I'm going to die!! Thankfully next week the holidays will be over. :)
We
have a 10 year old that we are teaching. Her parents were baptized in
October or November and she was not ready, but she is now taking the
lessons (again) and will be baptized on January 13. I get a little
confused of who is our actual investigators and who are former
investigators. We have a lot of work to do in our area. There are
quite a few part member families and a ton of less actives.
Oh another funny thing. I felt really bad because
Sister Garner and Sister Spencer will be moving this week. I know that
Sister Garner's stress was already high enough. I come into this area
and...we are moving next week. haha. I have been doing my best to just
live out of a suit case and unpack minimally. Also, we tend to go out
of our area a lot. We will be living outside of our area and some of
our investigators live outside of our area. I will eventually learn
this area :)
This upcoming week looks like its going to be a good one! Pray that we won't freeze!! :) Love you lots!!!
-Sister Douglass
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