DECEMBER 21 - I MAY FREEZE AND LOSE LIMBS

HEY DAD :)  You have to tell mom that she can't watch Star Wars without me because she promised she wouldn't!!

I am sending a Christmas present to the whole family.  It is a box of surprises and I didn’t really assign presents to anyone so you can all enjoy it! And fight over it!  I love giving you gifts but I didn’t have a ton of time to go shopping :) 

I am so excited for this week, let me tell you why.  The Sister Training Leaders get to make cookies for all the missionaries with Sister Palmer on Wednesday. Then on Thursday we are having District meeting AND a mission-wide devotional, and then Christmas Eve dinner. Then I am going to stay up until midnight to open a present, and then we aren't going to sleep in because Christmas is a normal work day, but then we get to skype on CHRISTMAS!! Then the day after Christmas that Punjabi pilot invited us to his wedding reception in Tracy so we are going to go! I am so excited! I am going to buy them a nice wedding gift! 

So I talked to a member who has 2 i-pads and she said that 10:30 am works best for her..... so that is pretty early, but not early enough ;) ! But it will be through face time not skype I think!  Just so ya know! 

So who is home for the holidays? Just Ashlee and her boyfriend?  That will be pretty fun. 

I am starting to think about what I want to write my homecoming talk on so that will be good.   

The weather had been super cold.  Our car tells us the 40’s and everyday we can see our breath!  Right now it is super windy too!!  Not very happy Californians.  For example we saw Exxxxo out walking his dog, and I wish I would have taken a picture but he had a sweater, puffy ski pants and a giant like russian looking hat and gloves. hahaha it was like 45 degrees.  These people just don’t know.  I am a liiittle nervous about my physical state of being when I get home.  I might freeze and lose limbs.  

So this week has been fun.  The two new Sisters in our Ward are really nice and cute so I am excited to be working with them.  I also only have one other set of sisters I am training so that will be a nice rest from the past couple of transfers.  I get to enjoy Manteca a little bit more!  

Saturday was the Ward party, and it was really fun.  Lxxxxe and Rxxl came with Mxx,.  By the way, Mxx is loving the nativity set you sent him.  We were behind a couple of days so we brought him 3 pieces at the same time and he got JOY all over his face and was like YEEESSS! He was soo cute.

We got to do service with the food bank where we go hand out food in the community to those in need.  We helped people carry it to their car, and the food bank LOVES us.  They saw us walking up and were like OOHHH yaaayyyy!!!  It was cool.  I was helping this old guy carry it to his car, and he was wearing a bald eagle cap and I told him I liked it because I was really patriotic.  He was like, "REALLY?" and went to his car because he had a brand new one that he said he gives away.  So then I wore it the rest of the time haha.  Turns out he was LDS though! I asked him what happened and he said he became Un-LDS and then wished me a Merry Christmas and drove away :( ha.  I am thinking about giving my eagle hat to Elder Lopez though because he is getting his mission switched to Canada. So sad haha. 

Lxxxxe and Rxxl are amazing.  We decided to ask him to read in the Book of Mormon from the beginning and he was like, well I have a question about the Book of Mormon... and then started talking about how Nephi was wanting to see his fathers vision and what meant certain things and HE HAD ALREADY READ THE FIRST 1

3 CHAPTERS!  He is awesome I tell you people.  I am really excited for them. If they choose to be baptized I am totally driving back for it.

We had a crazy lady encounter this week.  She just lost her husband and was crying and upset so we were trying to comfort her, but she wanted money, but it was just so sad.  She told us she was 65 and then kept asking us how old we thought she was.  To be honest, I thought she looked older than 65 so I was like weeeelll I think you look like you are 62.  Hahaha it made her happy.  Sometimes you just got to tell people they look 62 when they are really 65 to make their day happy haha.  YAYYAYAY.  Also the sisters in the Ripon ward are waiting for an apartment to open up in Ripon so they have been living on our floor the past week. I think living with 4 sisters is the best thing in this entire world. Shorter shower times don't bother me. I wish they could stay with us the whole time :(  But they probably don't want to sleep on the floor.  ANYWAYS.  Till later, I want to talk to you soon!!!

TALK TO YOU ON FRIDAY!
:)

LOVE YA!

HERMANA SHEFFER

(note from Sonja... found this picture on another missionary blog. I am such a good internet stalker.)