Sister Kirsten Leslie: *Stomp, Stomp, Crunch, Crunch*

That's the sound we make when we walk through all the snow we have!! We have over a foot of snow that all cam on Christmas and then yesterday. Sister Woodbury got her first white Christmas!! It was awesome!! We had a lot of fun and got a lot of work done!! Bawm! SO let's get started!

So let's start with Christmas Eve--we had our regular meetings, district meeting and area visits with the sisters and all that jazz which took up a big portion of our day. Afterwards, 3rd ward sisters then went with us to go caroling at an old folks home, and it was fun!! We sang to the residents as they were eating, and they loved it!! Some of them were singing along and getting pretty into it. :) Before we left, we gave them a candy cane and a He is the Gift card just for good measure! I've decided I'm going to go caroling every Christmas Eve to an old folks home because I've done that 2 years in a row now and I love it!! It helps brings the Spirit into someone's Christmas, which is awesome! We ate with the Mabey's, a great family in the ward who will soon be in a different ward than we will (sad face), so it was fun to get some more time with them. We had a nice dinner with ham and all (which is awesome, just different than I'm used to because we always keep Christmas Eve and Christmas day pretty chill when it comes to making big dinners),so that was delicious. We shared a Christmas message with them and just had a fun time. :) We finished Christmas Eve by going over to the Nicholls. They did great and had a non member in their home as well as Brother Nicholls' brother and family. They played some fun games (don't worry, we're obedient so we didn't play with them, we were the designated cheerleaders) which was hilarious to watch before eating dessert and sharing a message with all of them. About a month ago, maybe 3 weeks, we ate with the Nicholls and we committed them to have us and a non-member in their home on Christmas Eve or Christmas day. They accepted and have been working on finding one to have over. It was Tuesday night, and they hadn't found one yet, so they were nervous. We told them to just keep praying and doing everything they could and they would find someone. When Tuesday night rolled round, we didn't have anything to do on Christmas Eve night and we were worried, so we told the Nicholls that and they invited us over. We responded with, "Will there be a less-active of a non-member there too?" they replied a few minutes later with, "Yes! We found a non-member to come!!" So we were able to go over Christmas EVe and share a Christmas message with their non-member friend, which was AWESOME! It was definitely a miracle!! Missionary work is moving forward here in Casper! :)

Christmas Day was even more busy than last year--I didn't think it was possible!! We woke up at 5:30 to open our presents, which was REALLY early btw. I won't ever do THAT again! haha but we got all glammed up to talk to our families and then went to our first appointment (so we didn't get our studies) with the Klers. We shared a Christmas message with them and it was a great way to start off the day! When we woke up at 5:30, it was just starting to snow, and it snowed for like 36 or so hours, so we got a LOT of it! We then went back to the Nicholls and ate breakfast with them and had the best breakfast I have ever had on my mission, hands down! We had paleo waffles (so healthy!) with raspberries, whipped cream and coconut syrup!! Oh man, I'm not a fan of coconut, but that syrup was so dang good! We also had eggs, bacon, egg nog and SImply Apple juice! It was a great pre-skyping meal!! I then got to skype with my awesome family, and I almost died when I heard Tyler speak and saw how tall he is!! I still am freaking out!! Skyping this time was fun, but so WEIRD!! My siblings kept asking when I come home, and I just kept shutting them down, haha. Poor kids. But I'm still in denial that I don't have long left! As far as I'm concerned, next time I see them will be skyping on Mother's Day, haha! (juuust kidding family! But not really). SO that was fun!! We met with Brooklyn and her family before going to the Winn's to eat Christmas Dinner and it was fantastic!! It was great!! :) We also got to meet with a new-to-us less active couple, the LUdeman's. They are so old and so cute!! We enjoyed it a lot! Our other 2 appointments fell through, but we got in with another less active before calling it a night. We were pooped by the end of the night!! It was a crazy busy day!

And, Casper stinks at plowing their roads! I need to get a picture of how they do it:they push the snow ito the MIDDLE of the road so if you have to turn left into someone's driveway, you either have to mound the 4 foot snow pile or go flip a u turn somewhere--it's ridiculous! There were a lot of people who were late to church on Sunday because they couldn't get out of their driveways! And the awful wind here doesn't help! Some members had 5 foot drifts--yeesh.

Pete is doing great!! We had a fantastic lesson with him this week, well 2 actually. The first went okay, Pete was really stressed out, so he got a priesthood blessing and he seemed indifferent to it, but the next time we met with him was very different. Pete walked in with a huge grin and on his face and told us after we started the lesson that the priesthood blessing had helped him immensely and his shoulder, which had been hurting before, hadn't hurt in 3 days since our last lesson. Amazing!! He kept saying how much he felt the Spirit and he looked so happy. He was convinced that day was the best day of his life!!! SO that was really neat. He's doing awesome.

That's probably the most exciting news of the week! Enjoy the pictures! I love you all!

sister leslie.

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