Merry Southern Christmas, Y'all!

I'm going to let pictures tell most of my story from this past week, but Christmas down here was a pretty great one! 

Last Monday night we ate dinner with Sister Ladnier and Charlie! Charlie just turned 6, and he wanted me to sit by him. Then he had me draw pictures for him. Then he said that I'm his best friend!! So my best friend, Charlie has my heart in case anyone was curious. 

With Charlie

Sister Thompson and I got some cute Christmas cups from Diana, a recent convert, so naturally we had to take some pictures in the car with them. 

The Young women gave us a gingerbread house!!!

We had a zone training meeting, so Sister Thompson and I got Christmas-ed out. Okay, we actually pretty much dressed up in Christmas themes all week. But we took a picture from ZTM. The meeting was great. One of our zone leaders talked about finding and related it to fishing. He talked about the best fish being at the bottom of the pond, and while we may catch some at the surface there are a lot more as you go deeper. So our finding efforts need to be geared to getting those fish and reaching the bottom. 

Oh, and you can always tell when missionaries are having a meeting because of the parking lot. 

Then for Christmas we spent lots of time with the McClain family! We made cookies and delivered them to less-actives in their area. They were also hosting Miss Debbie, from the nursing home that Sister McClain works at. Miss Debbie is Catholic, but wants to learn more about our religion! We had some good talks, and I even got to teach her how we pray. She's sweet!

Christmas was a great one for us! We opened up some gifts and then headed to church. I just love the spirit that comes from singing Christmas hymns so I was grateful we sang so many. A recently returned elder in our ward spoke and shared some awesome mission stories. It was fun to hear them, and then I realized that here I am making similar memories! Missions are great and I'm glad I got to spend this Christmas here in the South, sharing the love of Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. 

Y'all stay warm now! If I could, I would totally send you some of this Mississippi heat. 

Have a good week, and a great start to your new year!

And to Marie: