White Christmas!!

Here are snippets from the email we got from Rachie this week, on Monday. She is loving it and so funny. I love her.

Hello hello!

"White Christmas!" -- That is what Sister Dickson told me we were going to have on the day we met. I replied very enthusiastically that "I hoped so!! I love the snow!!"
She wasn't talking about snow... hahaha. She was talking about Baptisms!! (Get it? i hope so.)
Anyway, it was funny. We still laugh about it. haha

BUT!! Turns out, it's both! We got about three more inches this morning!!! And we had a baptism on Saturday. Kathy and her daughter Sarah were baptized!! They are SO wonderful. Sister Dickson and Sister Stoehr (pronounced Steer) taught them and set them for baptism before I got here. And so when I got here, I just had to help teach a few of the commandments and get them even more pumped for their baptisms! It was wonderful. I love them so much! They live in our apartment complex so they are super close and just great. The Spirit was SO strong on Saturday. It was a "blessed day."  [Everyone says that out here. Like "Have a blessed day." It's wonderful]
The ward here is SO great! The YW room was packed for the baptism. They are so supportive and loving. Kathy and Sarah are going to be just fine.

We've been teaching Jeanie a few times since I've been here. She's actually been being taught for like a year and a half but just hasn't progressed very much. Then she had a major surgery over the summer because she had a tumor in her liver!! yikes. She has recovered miraculously and we raked her leaves last week for service. [That is a story of itself!! We thought we could just do it quickly no problem... wrong. We went on Thursday with a blower from a ward member and it took us two hours to blow the leaves in the back. We had the BIGGEST pile of leaves ever. So we jumped in it and then left because we didn't have time to bag them all. So we called the deacons and met them there on Saturday morning and did the front yard and bagged all of them. There is a BIG pile of garbage bags on her driveway! And I mean big. like 50 bags or something. It was really fun. And she and her husband really appreciated it. her husband, Diego, works all week in DC and comes home Sat-Mon. He was anti-ed but hopefully he'll come around to learning more soon.]
Anyway, Jeanie is now making lots of progress. She says she can't commit to a date but she wants to get baptized. She just wants to know EVERYTHING beforehand. So, Sis Dickson and I are picking our own date and teaching her accordingly so she'll be ready. Jan 27th. Pray for her, please.

Sister Dickson is still THE best. I love her. She has such a great heart. And she relies so much on the Spirit. I love working with her and learning from her. We've kind of planned trips to Cali, Hawaii and Arizona together after our missions. haha She goes home in February and I've already kind of started hoping that we can stay here together until then. I really don't want to leave this area. I just love this ward so much.

The Cahills (members) took us to Jeanie's last night to give her a blessing because she has to have another surgery sometime soon to put a stint or something in her arm for dialisis... I don't know... But I just LOVE the Cahills!! They are just the perfect couple. He is really funny and she is so cute and funny and they are just wonderful. They brought us back to their home afterwards for hot chocolate. It was great. They have a son who just came home from Peru and we all chatted about missions and stuff.

We went to Cici's pizza buffet the other day after our Zone Meeting. It was pretty good. Good deal, at least. And I tried the Mac and Cheese pizza. Totally weird. I didn't like it. haha

Ok, have a great day! Thanks for the support and prayers! I love the scriptures and the gospel and YOU!!

Love Sister Barney