"Christmas Time is Family Time. Family Time is Sacred Time."

Hey all! :)

So, I heard it's freezing there? I am so sorry :( It is so hot here still ha. It does not feel like Christmas time at all! Thank goodness people here decorate pretty good! And the first presidency Christmas devotional last night helped too. I hope you all were able to watch it! It was so amazing! I also gave my talk yesterday on missionary work and Christmas, and I thought it went pretty well! Two of my favorite things from the devotional were Sister Wixom saying, "We miss something if we don't see Christmas through a child's eyes." And Elder Nelson, "Christmas time is family time. Family time is sacred time." It really is. Please take the time this Christmas to spend with your family! I know friends are important too and work and whatever else, but some of us don't get to be with our families, so take advantage of that! But we do have a place to go for lunch on Christmas where we will be able to Skype so I am really excited for that! :)

This week was pretty good. I am training Sister Jacklin, and she is awesome! She is like a natural at teaching and contacting. She isn't scared of anything or at least she doesn't show it! She is from Payson and went to Salem Hills High School. She played soccer and basketball but tore her ACL twice so that just sucks :( But she runs with me for exercise thank goodness! She just graduated in May so she is young! Oldest of five kids and talks a lot, kinda like me ha. We have a good time.

So we dropped Jerry. He just was too stubborn about the Bible. :( But we are still teaching Yvette and she is doing great! She is excited to be baptized and it should happen by the end of the month! She came to church and participated in the lesson and everything! Now we are just doing a lot of finding again because she is like basically our only investigator.

Our ward Christmas party was this week so that was a lot of fun! There were a couple less active families that we invited who came and some members brought their nonmember friends! :) We stayed after and there was a DJ and we danced! It was so fun! I taught everyone how to do the cotton eyed joe! They were kind of shocked at us dancing and having fun ha!

The best thing was I think Friday night we went to the Medina's for dinner. I love them so much! They have a house on their street that does an open house to show their decorations and they have like 30 Christmas trees in their house with all different themes! I tried to take pictures but they did not do it justice. It was the coolest thing ever! Then they drove us around showing us where their friends lived that we could go visit! It was such a miracle that someone was finally referring their friends! I know as everyone continues to pray hard to know who they can introduce to the missionaries that miracles will totally come from it!

Well, I don't have much more to report on! I pray you all are doing well and loving the season! :)

Love, Sister Lowry

PS: Send me your Christmas cards! :)

Pictures from the party and from the house. This was a peacock themed tree and Brenda I thought of you!!