Merry Hannakuhmas to All!

Delivering goods on Christmas Eve.

Let me send you a little letter concerning the dealings of Vancouver around the holiday season.  The “Couve” filled me with Christmas cheer.  The whole store of Winco is converted because of our Christmas caroling.  However, we sounded like American Idols top ten worst.  GOOD THING THEY FELT THE SPIRIT THOUGH!  We caroled, delivered, shared, smiled, and celebrated.   How about a Christmas miracle?  We went to visit a fella we are teaching named Lucas on Christmas Day.  By the way, most people don't want lessons on Christmas Day... BUT Lucas needed a visit.  His ex- wife happened to be there and we began talking with her.  We learned she is actually a member of the church.  She wants to meet with the missionaries where she lives and come back to church!  She said we need to push Lucas so he will bring the kids to church!  The cool part was... she only stopped by to see Lucas for 15 minutes on Christmas and that's when we just happened to show up with a fairly decent sized picture of the Savior for him to hang on his wall. You just have a small thought to visit Lucas... and when you show up you begin to unite a family forever. You ready for something you won't hear about every day? Some Christmas week magic  (Polar express status):  We had an hour long conversation with a girl we found by sledding down a hill.  Yes, we sled down a hill after her and she said she would meet with us.  We came back the next week and she didn't think we would :).  We showed up and watched her battle the spirit for an hour until she caved in and agreed to take the lessons.  While talking to her on the doorstep we just couldn't seem to take no for an answer. I mean typically we are annoying, but we just couldn't take no.  After 40 minutes we promised her "the reason she came to earth now is because before she was born she promised Heavenly Father she would raise a family and bring them back to him".  I thought to myself... how do you even know that Elder King?  GUESS WHAT?  The next day when we went back she said... "When I was younger, I almost committed suicide... but I failed.  There was something more for me here.  When I had my first kid... I knew that was my purpose here".  How cool is that?  After some tears and a little doctrinal commentary concerning the plan of salvation we feel she is going to be sealed to her family while she lives yet on this Earth.  I definitely learned that if you have a prompting and you're listening... you can know it’s from God.  We ate dinner with the mission president yesterday for our Christmas dinner.  His grandkids kept calling him “gramps” and I kept looking at them weird.  To one of the grandkids I even said, "You know his name is President McAteer right?!" That made the little kid laugh!  What a special day with some special people.  Bishop gave us gift boxes on Christmas Eve to deliver to ward members full of cans of WHO HASH and the RARE WHO ROAST BEAST.  We loved playing Santa Claus as we delivered the boxes full of food.  It has been the best Christmas of my life.  I think it is because I finally decided to try and make it about others.  It's better that way.