Sister Akayla Juliann Ferrara: Christmas and more Snow! Ho Ho Ho!!

Hope you all had an amazing Christmas! I sure did! It was such a crazy week...I sometimes forget we even had Christmas this week! So I'll just get started!

Tuesday was absolutely insane! We had zone trainings this week and Sister Cragun and I have sisters in 3 different zones and most of the time the zone leaders ask us to give a training for their zone trainings. Tuesday was Papillions and the only time we had to study for our training was that morning, so we put everything together in about a half an hour during our comp study, and then got a text from one of our sisters (in the Papillion zone) telling us that her companion just found out the night before that her grandma had died. Well, we decided it was very important for us to go see her and find out how she was doing. By this point we were supposed to be at zone training in 10 minutes. We go see these sisters and Sister Gray is her name whos grandma died. She was not very stable. Obviously needed some time and could not go out and work for a little while. We decided we needed to drive her to the TC to get a blessing from senior elders, so Sister Cragun took her and Sister Gardner and I were going to take their car and follow them to the TC to drop Sister Gardner off so she could be with her companion and then have their car for the rest of the day. Well, as they took off Sister Gardner realized that Sister Gray had the car keys, but Sister Gardner had their phone and I had our phone....so we had NO way to contact them until they got to the TC which took 15 minutes to get to. AHH!! Could the morning get any better?! Luckily we were able to contact the zone leaders and tell them what was going on so they just moved everyone around and made our training later. Anyways...so Sister Cragun was able to just bring Sister Savage (my other companion) back to Sister Gardner and Gray's apartment because we had just left Sister Savage at the TC to be on shift while we gave our training. It wasn't necessary for her to be there because it wasn't her own zone. ANYWAYS...that was a tender mercy because then Sister Savage was able to drive Sister Gardner and herself to the training since Sister Gardner needed to be there, and then we were able to give our training...the minute we got there. So we were pretty flustered, but it all worked out! Kind of confusing...but hope you got the idea. The rest of the day went well. We got to serve at the Tabernacle which was really fun. And then the Gables bought us Chinese for dinner.

Wednesday was the Omaha zone training, and their zone leaders were really cool and put together a Christmas breakfast so everyone had a different assignment and we were told to bring sausage. Delicious! They actually didn't ask us to do a training for this one. Just asked us to do a musical number. That was great! Then that night we went caroling at Seven Oaks and the Florence home which are both retirement homes. It was so special! Then we had Christmas Eve dinner at the TC and watched a program that the senior couples put together. After we got everything cleaned up and got all the senior couples out of there we all got in a circle with the sisters and opened our secret sister gifts. A few weeks ago we each picked names and told them each to buy a gift around $5 for the sister they chose. It was so great!

Thursday...CHRISTMAS DAY! Sister Cragun and I since we are the TC Leaders had the responsibility to make a Christmas breakfast for the sisters. It's just a tradition that they've always done. We made pancakes and had each set of sisters bring fruit and syrup and things like that. Then we all opened our presents together and had such a great time! Skyping was so wonderful...it was so fun to be able to see my parents and siblings. Everyone has changed and gotten so big! Apparently they don't think I've changed at all though...I was hoping they were going to tell me I looked more mature ;) Oh well! We had 2 meal appointments that day. One with a Tongan family in our ward, so we ate SO much delicious food and got SO stuffed and sleepy. Then they gave us a whole huge thing of leftovers too. Then a half an hour later we ate another dinner with the Huffstutters. Christy, Jimmie, and Bruce. We all felt so sick afterwards. Just wanted to puke. After that we met up at the TC with some sisters and elders serving in this area and went caroling just around the neighborhood. So fun :) It was such a special Christmas! I really think it was the best Christmas I have ever had. I will always remember it. Having the opportunity to serve the Lord as a full time missionary on the day that we celebrate His birth. There really are not words to explain how special it is.

Hmmmm, well, unfortunately I am running out of time. The rest of the week wasn't too interesting. It finally snowed 2 days after Christmas! It didn't even feel like Christmas on Thursday because the sun was out and we didn't have to wear coats or anything. And now it's snowing as I am typing and it's freezing outside. Weird! Sister Cragun and I gave another training on Saturday for TC training about Meet the Mormons. We're getting here for the TC! We found out that was actually the reason they made the movie was for visitor centers but then decided to put it in the theaters first. We'll be getting it sometimes in the beginning of January, so we trained on how to introduce it and how we can increase our teaching pool by having it. Then we went on exchanges with Sister Gardner and Gray on Saturday. Kind of a dead day since everyone was out of town for Christmas or just didn't want to talk to us haha. Anyways...it was a great week and I hope you had a great week as well! I love you so much! Happy New Year!
Sister Ferrara :)