Merry Christmas :) 2013

Naturally with this being my first Christmas away from home I knew it was going to be different, and it was, but in a good way! And I can't think of anyone else I would rather spend Christmas with outside of family than my companions. I remember when we first got together and I wondered how on earth we could ever get a lesson flowing where when one person stops the other gets going, but since Sister Walker and I have been together for four months, and Sister McQuivey's been with us for half that time, we finally found a really nice balance. They've taught me so much, and we're all seeking to help one another become better missionaries individually as well as a companionship.

This past Friday we had a sort of mission/companionship inventory where we weren't really happy with our progress, so we sat down to figure out what was wrong. We finally decided we needed to narrow down the people we visited to spend our time more effectively teaching those who were ready to hear the gospel. Later that day, since President Weaver's family was in town, we went to an FHE which several zones were invited where we performed some last minute skits and President's grandchildren shared some of their talents. President Weaver then spoke about what to do when you're not happy about your mission and what to do about it. He said not to ask him what we could do to improve, or our zone leader about it, nor even our companion, but to ask ourselves what we can change to improve. We came out of that feeling like he'd held FHE just to share that message specifically with us and as soon as we got home we shared some personal goals to help each other keep and wrote down what qualities we want to have by the time we finish our missions. It's going better and we're still working on organizing the Area Book so when next transfer comes and we most likely split into two companionships that we'll have everyone updated and we can easily split the work.

Questions that were asked during chat with my family that I realized were unique to my mission that other might find interesting:

How many miles am I allowed? - We have unlimited miles on our car since the whole mission is our area. We still have to ask permission from President Weaver when we want to leave our zone just so he's aware and will validate the miles we'll use in traveling to that area for work.

How do I like my mission president? - I love him and his wife! Unfortunately their mission ends next summer, but I heard it's good to have more than one mission president so you experience different ways of doing things.

Will I have the same companions my whole mission? - We are getting a new sister from Cambodia in April, but we already have a Cambodian sister here speaking English which President Weaver said will put one of us with next transfer until the new sister gets here. Then, once Sister McQuivey leaves in October we'll hopefully have a replacement sister, so in the end, (if I go with Sister Noun next transfer which is most likely) I will have had 5 different companions.

Christmas was fun; we had breakfast at a members house, opened Christmas gifts at our apartment, picked up some Elders to take to a member lunch with us, then went to a member family to skype family!

Love you!

Sister Dunster