Hello my wonderful beloveds!  (<--is that a word? I don't know.)

The snow is here!!! So white and beautiful and lovely.  I saw actual snow-flakes for the first time.  When they land on the car or the sidewalk, you can see the individual flakes and they are so cool looking.  The cold isn't as bad as I thought it would be---until the wind starts blowing.  When the air is still, it feels nice and cold and dry, but when the wind starts blowing, that's when it becomes pretty unbearable.  But I experienced negative temperatures for the first time this week! It was quite chilly.  

We met lots of new people this week, expanding our pool of investigators and people to go see!  Also, we have one investigator who said she would never go to an LDS church because of stuff that's happened in her past, and out of the blue she showed up at church this Sunday! Woah!  We had no idea she was coming, so we weren't even in that ward this week :( Apparently she was looking for us, so I felt bad we weren't there to see her.  

Speaking of yesterday, Sister Worrall and I sang in church again--in two different wards this time.  Did I mention that I have been doing the Soprano part? You might mention that to Sister Nguyen, she's been wanting me to try Soprano for a while. 

So apparently we have a knack for reactivating people into the Catholic church :/   There was this family that we met, and they are Catholic but haven't been going and we talked to them about the Book of Mormon, etc, and the Dad said that he feels like God sent us as a message--to tell him he needs to start going back to church--the Catholic church.  Well...not our original intention, but our purpose is to bring people closer to Christ, so I suppose any faith is better than none at all.  This is the second time this has happened, haha.

On Friday night, we came home at the end of the day and flipped the light switch, only to find that our power was out.  The members we live with were out of town that day, and as our house is big and dark and creepy without any lights, we went back into our car to decide what to do.  There had been a strange man that came to our house earlier that day, so we were a bit paranoid. (I was picturing "Criminal Minds"-type scenes of stalking and kidnap).  So the members we had just seen that day were nice enough to come over with big flashlights so we could go inside and pack bags to go stay at the Sister Training Leader's place for the night.  That was an exciting adventure.  All was well and the next day our members were home and the lights were back on.  

Man, I love this gospel so much.  There really is nothing on Earth more important.  The basic principles of the gospel are just so important.  There is so much out there about church history and deep doctrine and all that extra stuff, but that's exactly what it is--extra stuff. The essential things for salvation are right there in the basics.  It all boils down to faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end by striving to become as Christlike as we can.  I have really been trying hard to improve my prayers this week.  I want to take time specifically to kneel before the Lord and offer up my heart and soul to him.  You can only get closer to someone by talking to them, after all!  

I love you all so much! Write me anytime :) 

God Bless,

Sister Moreland