Monday, December 26, 2011





Happy Boxing Day Everyone!
Wow it's been such an exciting week! so much going on in the missionary world of Lacombe with all the wonderful Christmas events!
We didn't have a chance to teach a lot of lessons this week with people being super busy with Christmas but we were thankful to be able to be at the Live Nativity/ Creche display set up at the church. It was amazing! i have never seen a live nativity, with all the ward volunteering to be the many parts of the Christmas story and people bringing in their animals - sheep, donkey and goat! it was so well done with music, lighting and costumes. I'll attach pictures for everyone to see. on Tuesday we helped set up the creche in the gym for six hours. all the walls were covered with white fabric and tables were set up surrounded with Christmas trees and white lights with the 200 creche's set up. people from all over the communities came and enjoyed the show, the creches and some hot chocolate and apple cider with cookies after! i had a lot of great conversations with people and invited many to take the lessons. i didn't have any immediate luck but i know the community's prospect of the church has increased in respect :D
Christmas eve was exciting! we had our whole day set up with lessons and everybody cancelled.... so we decided to go and visit a little old lady in the lodge senior centre, sister silliker. who I've come to know really well,we went to visit her and she was stuck in her wheel chair needing to go to the hospital! so we got her to the emergency and they gave her strong pain killer shots for her new knee. it was intense and I'm so glad that we were there at the right time, she still tells us we were the angels that arrived right on time! we then came back and went caroling with ward members at another senior centre. it was so fun to sing all the songs and meet new people. we then went to a Christmas party at the bishop's and his family and headed home for the night!
Christmas day was AMAZING! we got to sleep in.... which was awesome! we went to church at 10am and had a wonderful program of commentary that included Jewish customs that they did at the time and musical numbers including one i got to sing in with the choir - Where shepherds lately knelt - it was beautiful! many of the members invited us over but with time constraints we opened presents at home.... had a great brunch with the cuff family that we live with and then headed off to talk to the family on skype! it was so great to see the family... it's been 7 months! we chatted and then headed off to Christmas dinner with the hill family, stopped at a couple other homes and then headed to bed exhausted.
one of my favourite Christmas presents this Christmas was stopping by our new convert's home - Anne - with her new husband Neil! i was so worried if he was actually interested in the gospel and if Anne would stay active. we hadn't heard from them in a week and when we stopped by they said they've been reading the book of mormon together, a chapter a day! that makes me so excited for the work here!
so many blessings to be grateful for. But most of all I'm grateful for the family and friends that have supported me so much throughout the past 10 months of my missionary service. i have good days and harder days but all in all I'm thankful for you guys who remind me of my purpose and pray for me! I love you and miss you! Seven months today I'll be home in surrey! hard to believe.... stay strong and keep the Christmas spirit with you all year long.
lots of love
sister wotherspoon

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

Elder O'Randy, Sis. Wotherspoon, Elder Lee
Surrey 1st Ward Missionaries

New Puppies!!!!


A Visit from Santa...HOHOHO
Hello from Winter Wonderland!

I now know first hand why they call Canada the Great White North! It just keeps getting colder.... what a difference between just cold and when there's wind! haha well enough about the weather i had a CRAZY busy week this week. Poor sister Milburn isn't getting her newbie studies in but i think real life training is better then sitting reading out of a textbook anyways!

Well let's see if i can remember it all...

Anne Peters is doing great! she's reading the scriptures and going strong, she came to all three hours of church and to our ward potluck because it was ward conference! Of course her fiance Neil came too and i think he really enjoys church! They are super cute together and through a wonderful miracle Anne and Neil were both able to find their divorce certificates and are getting married by bishop Lowry tonight at the chapel at seven o clock! It's so funny.... Neil - age 84, is
sooooo nervous to get married in front of people that he has to go to the doctor to get a pill for his anxiety! it's going to be fabulous! i asked a lady in the ward who does weddings to decorate, I'll take lots of pictures!

Something fun this week! The Kasners in our ward are breeders of my favourite dog! an Australian sheep dog! they have five puppies and they are so cute! I'll have to go back in a couple weeks when they are running around!

Thursday we had a crazy experience, we were planning on going to this sister missionary cookie thing in Edmonton and on the way there we realized we didn't have our phone.... we went home and couldn't find it! well we had no way of knowing the numbers or address of the place so we missed it.... we were so upset and spent four hours looking for it! we ended up driving up to Edmonton that night for the Christmas conference the next day and just had fun. The Christmas conference was awesome! three hours of training, a great turkey lunch and three hours of hilarious random talents by the missionaries! i sang a Christmas medley including chestnuts roasting on an open fire and have yourself a merry little Christmas with elder smith (from my first district, he's from Toronto). we sang it jazzy at a keyboard and it was super fun! we then found out at ten to four that we being outlying missionaries could go to the temple at four! o man..... we ran! it's a good thing i had my recommend on me!

it was so wonderful to go, i haven't been since April ish! it was so peaceful AND the officiator was Brother Patrick!!!!!! I also saw a guy from one of my ysa wards and a lady came up to me in the celestial room and told me i was pretty ha ha it was a good day :D

well.... later that night after searching for the cell phone more sister Milburn said i wonder if we threw it out in the trash? we decided that couldn't have happened but it wouldn't leave my mind so at ten thirty i said wanna go dumpster diving?!?! we did! when we got to the church parking lot she got out of the car and right there in the snow was our phone!!!!!!! it was a Christmas miracle for sure! it was nearly dead when we lost it but was still alive working in the
snow after two days of -20 degrees!

Another blessing.... Stephen during finals week called us and set up an appointment and invited us to a Christmas band concert at the seventh day Adventist college! he then came to church and he's just plain awesome... Last night i also performed in the red deer Christmas stake fireside singing a song with the choir along to bells!

it's been a crazy week, so many blessings! i know this email was super long but i hope you enjoyed something! thank you all for your emails and your cards and packages! i feel so loved and know that my blessings come from your prayers!

love you all so much! and i really miss you. Happy Holidays!

sister wotherspoon