Sister Dorneles hid Clarence the Curious Elf in the best spot yet--that hole in our map!
Elders Glasses Smith and Silva upon first seeing a mormon.org add!
The corner of Times Square is too good to be true--Harry Potter AND The Hobbit!
Yay! The real meaning of Christmas!
Ha! We're even on a taxi! Mind you, that's for the play, but hey, it's still making people think of the Scriptures!
Me and four of my eight companions in the Temple!
A smattering of our Elders in front of the Temple.
Sister Morrison and I in "the City"! (A high five for whomever spots the mormon.org poster first!)
This was my favorite of the adds--it's just cute.
We made it onto a screen! If you see Sister Torgerson in the red skirt, I'm the head that's almost on top of her head! I'm famous!
Our last lesson with Little Peter--doing Alma 50 and comparing it with prayer, scripture study, Church, and following the Prophet.
The Deans! They would fit right in with our family!
Little and Big Peter and Sister Dorneles at the Ward Christmas Party!
Peter's Baptism. Isn't he just glowing?
Darling Family!
I sounds like you've had a lot of fun recently, I sure hope so! I've also had a lot of fun! Yesterday was dear Little Peter's baptism! This past week we saw him nearly every day to get all the lessons in. But he remembered everything, and really enjoyed everything he learned. He's a star pupil! I so wish everyone we taught was like Little Peter. At Church he was just glowing!
We had a debacle filling up the font, thinking it filled more slowly than it actually does. We were sitting in Relief Society and I jumped and thought, "We need to go check the font!" Then I just decided we had time so I didn't do anything about it, but it kept nagging. Then Sister Torgerson recognized her prompting for what it was (from the Holy Ghost) and made us go check it. And just in the nick of time! It had about a centimeter before it would started flooding past the rim of the font and into the bathroom and gym! Woof! We got the water down, and proceeded with the rest of the preparations.
A youth spoke about baptism, and I spoke about the Holy Ghost. Peter's dad baptized him. Little Peter's toe--ding!---popped up out of the water, so they needed to redo the ordinance. "Oh, I didn't know I wasn't supposed to put my feet up!" The second time it went perfectly! He described himself as feeling "fresh and new!" Oh, I wish I could just give him a hug, he reminds me of Danny. Such a polite gentleman!
We also went to the Temple this week! It was so amazing! I love the Temple! We drove to Union City, like last time, and took a wa-wa (bus) in to the port authority. We disembarked the bus, and continued on foot, through Times Square. Now, there were lots of neat billboards for new plays like Cinderella, and adds for a swell Harry Potter exhibit. And, yes, Hobbit posters that I nearly fainted upon seeing. But the best part, were the five or six billboards featuring mormon.org Christmas adds. We were jumping up and down, pointing and shouting with glee (we weren't a very composed bunch)! It was so cool to see all the meaningless fluff of Times Square, but then something really special and of the utmost importance flash onto the screens!
We continued our jaunt past Central Park, and into the fancy artsy district, past Julliard and into the quiet confines of the Temple. We arrived a few hours earlier than the time we'd arranged, so we did initiatories. It was so neat to remember things I'd forgotten. When I get home, you guys will have to come with me to the Temple, because I love that place, and there are so many and so close to where we live! We saw the Manhattan Mission President and his wife there with their departing missionaries (since the Temple is in their mission, they get to go every transfer!). I only have one more trip left, and I'll probably be bawling like those missionaries were. Woof!
Let's see, otherwise, we had a lot of down time because Sister Torgerson has been sick and needed lots of sleep. I don't know if I mentioned this in a past email, but I'd been praying for an opportunity to catch up in my journal after an Elder told me he'd done so. Then his companion got sick, and he got caught up after being a month behind. I thought I'd be able to catch up during an exchange with a sick sister, but I only wrote a days worth. Anyway, since we were in for two days I got caught up on about a transfer's worth of my journal! That takes a load off my back, yes!
Well, I hope you guys enjoyed The Hobbit, I asked a member about it and we nerded for about 15 minutes before I got myself together and started speaking about more applicable to the Gospel things.
I love you guys and I hope you have a lovely week! I'm excited to hear all of your voices next week! I love you!
Sister Mistletoe
