Christmas Pics and The Eternal Everyday

Dear Everyone-

Hey!! It was so wonderful to see you all! I was on cloud nine for the rest of the day, it was lovely. :) To be completely honest, I'm not entirely sure what to write you- I kind of shared just about everything on Wednesday. So, this will be a rather random email with little bits that I'm kind of just throwing out at you. But, I hope you enjoy it. Mainly, it was lovely to see you on Christmas. I was glowing when I came out. Thank you.

In answer to Dad's question- No, I didn't have a negative backlash after seeing you. To be completely honest, I think spending two years away at school really helped me on that score. I've known a lot of missionaries who lived at home before coming out, and leaving their families was a lot harder. I've had nothing but positive experiences, and I actually talked about it all during a lesson on Thursday. We had dinner with a member family, and afterwards we did a lesson on love at home (the Grandma's request- ;) ). I talked about how sometimes I felt that 9 people was a lot of people to get a long with, and it was really hard, but now I'm on my mission I am so grateful for you and all of your support. Then everyone went around and said one thing they liked about the person sitting next to them. It was kind of funny to see two sisters who weren't too happy with each other trying to come up with something with out actually admitting that the other was nice. LoL- reminds me of some great times we had. But, I was super happy that I got to Skype with you, I love the fact that I have so many voices cheering for me, and I love feeling your support. I feel it every time we email, when I Skyped with you, and every time I talk about you. But I don't feel a let down afterwards, and I am so grateful for that. I love you all so much. I hope you feel my love just as much as I feel yours, because I feel it a lot.

After Christmas, we went to Christine's house. She is a recent convert and she is absolutely incredible. I love her. Her husband is in Afghanistan, so it was just us three. It was a neat ending to a great Christmas.

Thank you Mom and Dad for your emails. They were both incredible. :) LoL- its kind of funny to think about where every one was just a year ago. There have been a lot of big things happening. I actually am going to print off both of those emails- they were incredible. Thank you.

Random bit- My Mission president sent us this poem:

“The Eternal Everyday:”

O, one might reach heroic heights

By one strong burst of power.

He might endure the whitest lights

Of heaven for an hour;--

But harder is the daily drag,

To smile at trials which fret and fag,

And not to murmur--nor to lag.

The test of greatness is the way

One meets the Eternal Everyday.

I really love it. :) I hope you enjoy it too. Mom and Dad are excellent at making super wise comments, so I'll just let them decide what they want to teach y'all about it. In the meantime, I just love it, and I thought I'd share it with you.

Anyways, I hope you have a great week. I love you so much!! You are amazing!! 

Dad asked for more pictures, so I'm sending a bunch of pictures. I guess I could just explain most of them.

Shepards from the Christmas Festival last week, and a bunch of other stuff from the Christmas Festival. Sister Warren is the awesome sister I had the opportunity of hanging out with all evening. :) She is great. There is also couple of pictures of the train I guarded valiantly for 5 hours.

At the Vergara's, we did the Nativity... :) It was probably the funniest Nativity I've ever seen. They got a script off the internet... and Whoo! Who knew you could have so much dramatic interpretation from Luke!??! I also appreciated Elder Fredrickson who was the pirate shepherd. 

Sister Nokes and I Christmas morning. Harrold gave us Auburn t-shirts, so we wore those to bed Christmas Eve and woke up all stylish in bright orange. :)

HUGE snowman outside Rick and Jody's house. It is 20 feet tall... LoL- larger than their house.

 Whew!! Hope you enjoy all of the pictures! :) I love you all tons and tons! I hope you have a great week! Love you.

Christmas

Dear Family and Friends and all those I love,

Merry Christmas!! I hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas. I hope each of you have been able to take a few moments to stop and reflect on the Savior.

So, I had a beautifully long letter all written and typed up, but then the computer kicked me off. :) Now I have about 4 min to write you all. But basically, I talked about the small, simple ways that Christmas has come to mean a lot to me. I guess it fits that my big long letter was deleted.

One thing- I know that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the World. I am so grateful for him. I am grateful for all he has done for me. I am grateful for the intimate nature of the Atonement. Often it is through small and simple ways that the Savior makes himself manifest in our lives, and I am so grateful that he has allowed me to see those moments. They mean more to me than all the pomp and circumstance of the whole world.

I love you all. I hope you have a very Merry Christmas!!

Love always,

~Sister Pratt

Temple Trip and the Christmas Festival

Hey!

How is everything going? I hope you are having a wonderful Christmas season!! :) 

This past week we had a temple trip, two days of acting like temple square missionaries, and my companion has been sick. Needless to say, it hasn't been the best week for proselyting. But, its been a pretty good week nonetheless. 

The temple was pretty great. Before we went in, I had the opportunity to see Sister McDougal, which was absolutely fantastic. I love her so much. She is probably one of my top three favorite companions (out of the three that I've had... but still. :) I love her), and it was just great to talk with her. We live 2 hours away from the temple (1st time I have not lived exactly 30 min from the temple...), and it was nice to fall asleep on the way there and talk to Sister Nokes on the way back. 

The Madison Stake and our stake (The Huntsville Stake) put together a HUGE Christmas festival every year. They have a choir that is by invitation only, with an orchestra and they performed a bunch of Mack Wilberg songs. It felt like a Mini-Mo-Tab, especially during their closing number of Angles We Have Heard on High. They completely transformed the church to create a live walk through nativity (I'll show you pictures in my next email... sorry, forgot the hook-up), and they had 390 (or 100... there is some dispute about that number) nativities set up in the cultural hall. It was absolutely incredible. They spent a week putting everything up, and we spent two days acting as ushers or barriers between little fingers and the nativities. I was slightly saddened because despite the 390 (or 100) nativities in that room, there was not a single Precious Moments nativity. :) Christmas just isn't Christmas unless I get at least one chance to move around that nativity. Oh well. I'll just have to make my own with a paper snowflake. It was a great experience! I loved how Christmassy everything was. I was so grateful I had the opportunity to participate in that great event. but after 5 hours of standing on my feet with high-heels and only an orange to eat, I was ready to go home.

Sister Nokes has been slightly sick... Mostly she has the cold that I gave her, but she's had it about three times as long as I've had it. Its just a cold and it just means we have to take things slower than usual... but I kindof get the feeling in general I'll be going a lot slower than usual this transfer. LoL- all of my companions make me feel like I need to learn to slow down. At least I haven't killed anyone yet. :) And I'm trying to learn that... its just really hard when I have such an important job to do, and there are so many people that need the gospel so badly. But sometimes you have to work at the rate of your companion, not necessarily the rate you would like. I guess that is where that patience thingy comes into play. Well, if you could pray for us to run into some new investigators who would be ready to get baptized at some point soon, that would be fabulous. We could really use some of those.

Thanks so much!! I love you all!! Hope you have a very Merry Christmas!

Love always,

~Sister Pratt

If you is what you was, then you ain't!

Hey!

As you can tell from the subject, this email is all about "if you is what you was, then you ain't!" Wise words from my next-door neighbor, quoted by President Hanks during transfers and then reinforced this past week. Its been a crazy week of change, both in my life and in the lives of the people I get the opportunity to work with. Hopefully because of the changes we've all gone through this week has been a week of changing our hearts and drawing closer to the Savior.

On Wednesday I finally had the opportunity of attending a wedding. :) Of the many I've tried to plan, this is one of the few that actually came through. Oh! They are the most adorable couple ever! She was just bouncing around the room, making sure everything was going well with us (the guests), and that all of the papers were in order. He just stood there, grinning from ear to ear, about as proud as he could be. It was a small gathering, the Elders, her mother, the bishop's daughter, the Bishop and us, but it was so incredibly full of light and love. She had so much light radiating off of her, it was a true honor simply to sit and bask in her light. On Saturday she was baptized, and it was one of the most incredible experiences ever. They both had that light, but this one was more of a steady light- like a steadily burning coal as opposed to a fanciful fire. I am so glad that one of the Lord's choice daughters has made it onto the path, and I am honored to have witnessed just a part of it.

On Saturday we went on exchanges, and it was quite fabulous. We had the opportunity to bike, and it was FREEZING!!!!! I am pretty sure that early morning marching band prepared me for my mission if for no other reason than I have felt about 1/2 that cold once before... Oh! And then we went and painted a home (It was TONS of fun!!!), but they didn't have heat. LoL Oh well! The lady served us some of the most delicious food I have ever had in my life! It was great- beef and some type of salsa. I never knew Spanish food could taste so good. I loved it!

On Sunday, I had the opportunity of driving with Sister Jackson (my trainer) down to the Bell's baptism. It was a beautiful service, and it was incredible to see them make the covenants that they did. They have such an incredible love for the Savior, and a strong desire to follow him, it has truly been inspiring. On the way down, it rained complete SHEETS, and on the way back it did the same thing. :) But it was worth any effort to see them get baptized. I love them so much.

Well, I love you all! Hope you have a great day!!

Love,

~Sister Pratt

Here are a whole bunch of unrelated pictures...just thought you might enjoy.

Thanksgiving in Monte Sano

Hey!! 

How are you all?!?!?! It is so great to hear from all of you! I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. :) Grandma acutally says that you should send me pictures of Thanksgiving. Oh! It sounds like you had an absolute blast. I'm glad the McCoys were able to come over, and I'm glad that Grandma and Grandpa Pratt were there.

This Thanksgiving I was mostly grateful for the Lord strengthening me. On Sunday I got sick, and our dinner appointment fell through, so I fasted until 9:00. It was slightly miserable, but mostly I was constantly praying that the Lord would sustain me. The first Sunday in a new ward is pretty important, and Sundays are super important for missionaries. So, I am grateful that the Lord sustains us. :) And I'm grateful for the Christmas season- minus the nasty consumerism, it is a great time of year.

Transfers were this week, and I'm pretty happy. For some odd reason, when I came out I expected to spend my whole mission in a super poor old-fashioned country area, working with small branches and bringing the light of the gospel into super dingy homes. I was expecting the epitome of humble. Yeah... that hasn't exactly been my experience thus far. I mean, I guess I've been in quite a few small, sketchy apartments, but that's kind of it. I don't know how President did it or what the Lord is trying to tell me, but once again I am in super rich city area, and the ward is super strong. This area doesn't even have an inner-city super sketchy area. I'm pretty sure I'm the only missionary in the history of this mission that has been in this type of area for so long. But, hey! I am absolutely convinced that I will love every second of it. Huntsville is mostly military and NASA, so there are a bunch of people who are super smart and do really epic things for work. The ward members are very welcoming; they feed us several times a week, and I get the feeling that they believe we are doing something super important. It is really nice to feel their confidence, and I can feel the difference it makes in the missionary work.

My companion seems like she will be a great companion. Her name is Sister Nokes, and she comes from Riverton, Ut. She's been in Alabama almost a year, and I am her 8th companion. She really knows the members, she's nice and she works hard. It is going to be a fabulous transfer (or two, or three, or four).

Thanksgiving was great. We went to two members homes, but I was really only able to eat one dinner. It was kind of lonely because I was the only person that didn't know everybody, and my companion is super social, so I got super shy. But the food was good, the people are good, and there was much to be thankful for.

Also, Auburn won the Iron Bowl in an absolutely epic finish. :) I'm pretty sure I will hear of nothing else for the rest of the year.

Oh! I love you all!! Good luck to Jenessa, I will be praying that your dance goes well. I didn't know that you were in ballroom dance, but that is fabulous. I always knew you would be a great ballroom dancer. Just please make sure you get me tickets to your nationals events and all other BYU ballroom dance stuff.

Well, I hope you all have a fabulous week!! I love you all!!

Love,

~Sister Pratt