No Room For Contention

Mom!

I can no belief that it is so close up to Christmas!! Thank you too much for sending all of those pictures of the Santa party! It looks like Santa came to a different house this year!  THOSE PRETZELS look sooo tastey!! Speak of tastey...Thank you BIG one for all of the treats, food, and clothes!! When those cartons of food came I am not even going to lie... my companion and me about cried.  We were so happy!!! And those homemade cookies made my whole laef better!!!! :) I shared them with some of our neighbors and they LOVED them.  One of them told me that when he comes to America that is the only thing he wants to eat! haha.  Thank you too much!!!!!! I can not even say it enough!!! But mother! Sending those cartons is expensive too much!!! I can no belief how expensive it is to send things over here! Sorry so much! But thank you!! And thank you for the shirt and those skirts too! Those skirts are perfect.  The fabric is amazing, and it does really well with the board wash! Thank you big one!!! You are the best!!! We decorated our house with the Christmas stockings and all of our neighbors think we are crazy! Christmas is not a very big holiday over here, and so it was good to decorate to try to feel a little bit like Christmas!

Wow it is weird to hear that it is cold at home! It has been hot bitim every hot this week!! And the volcano has been fired up big one! I have not been able to sleep! haha.  It is great!! Christmas is so close up! I call a week from today to set up our appointment to talk on Christmas!

Please please help Sister P have a good Christmas this year. Please go and spend some time with her, she loves to story! I wish I was there to spend Christmas with her! Bake her some treats, but make sure they are soft because she has a hard time eating the hard ones! But she loves treats!! And a salad! Bring her your homemade spinach salad! She loves that! Tell her I love her and miss her big one!!!

This week we have seen miracles in our branch.  Our branch has really been struggling because of tribal/political fights that have been going on.  It has been really hard to make misisioari work the past couple of weeks.  We  have four Melkezedek Priesthood holders in our branch and they  had all been fighting.  We were able to organize a meeting to  help them all address all of their concerns.  They all started arguing and finally we stopped them and asked them why they thought the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints has that name.  They all shrugged their shoulders and we were able to explain that this church is not the church of Ashanti tribe, it is not the church of John From, it is not the church of one man, but it is the Church of Jesus Christ.  All of the political rubbish has no place in the church.  This church is not for a specific group of people, but it is for all people.  We are all invited to come and partake of the fruits of this gospel.  There is no room in the Church of Jesus Christ for contention.  It does not matter if your side of the fight is right, it does not matter if your grudge is justified, if you have contention  you are wrong.  If you have contention in your heart, you have no room for the Holy Ghost to be there.  After that meeting we saw many hearts soften.  They all still bin got all of their differences, but now they have a heart and eye single to the glory of Papa God.

My tripping problem has not been fixed since I got here.  Embarrassing story of the week:  It was night and we had just bin finished a meeting with our branch mission leader.  All of the men in village had bin making a meeting down on the sun beach down from our house.  The path to our house was right in the middle of the meeting so we decided to go around and take another path.  I was holding the torch trying to light the path for us.  I got embarrassed because they all started looking over at us so I started to walk really quickly.  Apparently I was not looking at where I was going because I was embarrassed.  The next thing I knew I was face down in the dirt in a small three foot rubbish hole... I was so embarrassed.  Some one had dug a big big hole to throw all of their rubbish in to burn and I hadn't seen it and fell face first into it.  And the worst part was...everyone saw because all of the sudden the torch light was gone. After I got up and my companion helped me out of the hole covered in dirt and who knows what.. all of the people at the meeting started laughing!! They all started yelling, "Kaka yu bin faldoan!" haha.  So embarrassing.  

Love you all!!!