Dear Loved Ones,
I just want to tell you how loved you are. It's hard not to get trunky at Christmas time. Honestly I don’t let myself think about Christmas and then I don't miss you. So it just doesn't feel like Christmas. It's weird to think that next year I will be home and it would've been like five years since we were all together. I am excited though. Christmas is a hard time to be a missionary on a university campus because everyone goes home, just like BYU! We were on campus and saw one life form and all it was was a man with a metal detector who was really determined to find some metal. It's gotten very cold as well. I've very much become a St George person so I know it's not cold compared to Provo or England but it’s freezing for me! We wrap up warm and run in the mornings. It was 26 degrees this morning! My knee is still bruised and slowly improving. It still hurts a lot but I'm very sure that if I do nothing about it it will get better eventually #storyofmymission haha When I get home I need a mass doctors apointment. I've never been so hurt and had so many ailments as I have on my mission!!
Well we had a great lesson with N this week. We saw him just before he left to go home. We taught him about the Priesthood and how he can be a Priesthood holder when he finally decides to be baptized. He liked the idea of that and said that he would like a Priesthood blessing in January when he is back at school. N has a great spirit about him and it will be a joyous day when he decides to be baptized.
We are trying to find ways to spend our time effectively with everyone gone! We went to Sister Rhodes house, the High Councilors wife, and made cookies with her. It felt like real Christmas. We did that again at the end of the week because we'd handed out all the cookies. It was great because we got to know them better, and people are so much more receptive to us when we have treats for them. They were all studying for finals or sleeping so to have us at the door with treats made it a lot better. We actually found a new investigator from it. We stopped this boy on the stairs and gave him cookies and started talking about Christ and he said he has been to the LDS church three times. You know a missionary's first thought when someone says they have already been to church three times? #MIRACLEBAPTISMTHATWE'VEALLBEENPRAYINGFOR but alas he invited us back for the following day and when we went it turns out he is Catholic and is happy to listen to us and to come to church but he will only read the Book of Mormon if he has a marvellous miracle that tells him to read the Book of Mormon. We felt like saying, well here it is! This is the miracle telling you to read it haha. But we are just keeping in our prayers to enlist the Lord for His bounteous blesings to allow something to let him see he should read the Boom of Mormon. Every single person comes with their own struggles and their own bags of problems. Missionary work is never easy. We always have that hill to climb with every single one of them, and I think that that is why we are so exhausted by the end of our missions from being that guide, holding people’s hands and helping them to climb up the hill. But it's not supposed to be easy “The wind did never cease to blow towards the promised land” - Ether 6:8 .
We had a lot of fun handing out our coookies and singing to everyone. We went out with CJ our Ward Mission Leader and he drove us to YSA houses in St George and we carolled and shared the Christmas spirit. It was really fun. We went to CJ's house to teach his less active roommate. Well less active is an under statement. He is NON ACTIVE. He doesn't know if God is real. I can see a lot of bitternes with him and can just see how lost and confused he is. He says he’s prayed for ages to know if God is there but never gets an answer and it makes him angry. We can see how that will be annoying but that he needs to stay humble instead of getting angry! But I had a very special exerience there with him that is too sacred to write on an email and I'll tell you about it on Christmas Day or something! I told him and he was very touched and said that is the only thing of worth he has heard all lesson haha. I do love him though, he is great. We asked him to watch The Hope Of God's Light. Yesterday we saw CJ and he said that D went for a long drive after we left. I hope that was a good thing!!
We had the missionary choir yesterday! It was so great to do that again and be a part of all the festivities! I was a part of a double quartet that sung Away In A Manger. I love singing at the Tabernacle, it's so historic and beautiful! I love being in the St George mission! We sung O Holy Night and lots of carols and President Center played his guitar. Sister Hee and Sister Harper, both former missionaries, were there with their parents. It was so hard saying goodbye to that group because there were lots of missionaries I was close with. We were on shift on Wednesday morning and The Wedding of Sister Duval and Elder Campbell was taking place at midday. We were all excited and standing at the back waiting for them to come out of the Temple. Meanwhile Sister Harper was waiting for her parents to come and be reunited with them at the end of her mission. We were all eagerly anticipating both events and then of course the happy couple come out of the Temple at the same time as the doors of the Visitors’ Centre open and in walk Sister Harper’s parents. None of us knew where to look or what to take pictures of hahaha!!! Why do they always happen at the same time? Anyway it was a beautiful wedding and a beautiful reunion! We all cried seeing her hug her parents and all the tears! #trunky #12weeks #jkineverwanttoleave We made this BIIIGGG sign that said CONGRATULATIONS and we went out of the VC and held it up so that the happy couple would see it and slowly one by one people started seeing it and pointing and then Sister Duval walked towards us so her husband followed and we all hugged the beautiful bride. It was so weird seeing my Sister Training Leader coming out of the temple as a married woman! hahah. I'll just be a missionary forever.
I had some cool VC experiences this week. A Lutheran couple came in who know the Bible very well. It was one of those couples that you just know you were supposed to be the one who gave them a tour because we connected instantly. We just hit it off and I showed them the Temple pictures at the back which usually just takes about 5 minutes but we were there for about an hour and half and they just asked question after question after question and I just knew what to say with the help of the Spirit! I wasn’t nervous and it went really well! Then this one boy who was sitting on the sofa near us was obviously listening in and then he just jumped up and butted in and started answering their questions and saying awkward things and confusing things and using terminology they wouldn’t understand and not letting me saying anything and I went to find a scripture for them to read and he just started quoting it and I was trying to stay Christ-like! He didn’t serve a mission and hangs out at the VC allllll the time talking to us Sisters and he makes me feel uncomfortable. Anyway he finally left and the couple were like...who was that? and I said I have no idea and they were like, oh he isn't a missionary? And I said NO!! But it was a positive tour and they took the Book of Mormon! It was a great experience.
Then I was putting a movie on and saw in my peripheral vision someone on the sofa crying. I went up to her to talk to her and she had just watched He Is The Gift and said she felt the Spirit and relief and the love of God for the first time in a year. She didn’t say what she was struggling with but I felt impressed to tell her of my exerience with choosing to serve a mission and how it was scary but the Lord led me and has strengthened me and now real life sounds scary!! So she looked at me and told me that was exactly what she needed to hear and we just connected so well. We hugged and cried and talked and again it was someone you just know you needed to meet. One day I'll give you all the details of these rubbishly written little stories on my emails!
Well Merry Merry Christmas everyone. My last Christmas as a missionary! We have lots of plans and I will miss you and think about you every second of every day. My heart yearns to be with you but I'll Skype you on Thursday and probably cry because I love you so much! Every day you become more precious to me. I'll be thinking about you all week! I love you so much and love the Saviour even more and that is why I'm here serving His children, Doctrine & Covenants 19:37-41 gave me great courage this week!
I love you so much
Sister Nicholls
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