Light the World this December

 


Welcome December!  Christmas 🎄 music 🎶 on and here we go!  Happy birthday 🎂 Ashlyn, Samantha & Riley who celebrated on Saturday & Sunday!  Prayers and get well wishes to my mom who had to have some emergency surgery this week.  Thanks to my sis who knew right away that she needed to go to the ER.  Happy 5 months to us!  Time is flying!

We decorated the mission office this week for Christmas!🎅. It’s small, but it’s something!  I tried to find a poinsettia for our apartment, but so far not very hopeful that they have those here.  Not sure there’s much room in our apartment anyway and it’s too hot 🥵 for a live tree or wreath, so enjoying the simple life and the true Reason For the Season.  Loved the Time Square video of the Nativity as part of Light the World.  Have you seen it? 


It’s also time for a new departure/welcome board, so I helped Sister Stoffers make her idea a reality.  She made ornaments out of all the flags from our mission (8) AND all the countries represented by our missionaries!  It was really pretty awesome to see it come together and feel that love 💕 Heavenly Father has for his children from all over the world 🌎! The snowflakes ❄️ are our incoming missionaries set to arrive January 5th.  Of 📝 note is that it was pretty surreal adding another Elder & Sister Ellis to the board!  We look forward to seeing them right after New Years!  

These cute sisters helped with finishing touches!

Tuesday, we were invited to attend District Council.  Our missionaries have been on fire 🔥 this transfer!  We want to support them in any way possible, so they included us in their planning council.  Afterwards, we took them to their favorite (not ours) Chefette for lunch.  We ran into one of their friends that attended church, so Carlos jumped in the picture with us.  

Thursday, we celebrated Barbados 🇧🇧  Independence Day!  Most of the island closed up shop, but we were finally able to get into our office building and do a little work before heading out to Carlisle Bay to enjoy the afternoon.  


Saturday we had not one 1️⃣ but five 5️⃣ baptisms of the Cox children.  Their mom who had been away from church for many years came and spoke about baptism.  She read from 3Nephi 11:31-38.  She talked about her journey a bit, but more about how her children were prepared to take this step.  Brandon, her 2nd oldest, asked Doug to baptize him.  It was a fabulous, spiritual experience for us all.  They then asked if Doug would confirm Brandon on Sunday.  He did a great job as always.  There were a lot of firsts this weekend in our branch and we felt God’s hands and His 💗.  

Sunday was also Hudson’s baby blessing!  Thank goodness for technology, so we could participate thousands of miles away.  Riley gave Hudson a beautiful blessing and Samantha bore a powerful testimony.  We felt the love of our Heavenly Father for Hudson, our grandchildren and our children.  Thank you to our tribe who are supporting them when we can’t physically be there.  It means so much to us!



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