Sister Alyssa Bailey: 12/9/13

Hello Family!

How are you all doing? I'm doing rather swell :). It finally decided to snow yesterday! Alllll the day long! We got snowed in after church! Kookoo. It took all of them member that live down in Kennett Square (30 min away) 5 hours to get home!!! It took us only an hour (its a 10 min drive). But today is better. The roads are cleared off and its a little bit warmer. Its supposed to snow again tomorrow...I guess you would actually know better than I would considering I can't watch the weather report and you can google it.

So last monday we went to Philadelphia! It was grandomundo funn. We went to the Rocky steps and made friends with the NICCEST Hobo who took our pictures and didn't even run away with our cameras like Sister B thought he would. Apparently he has met with missionaries before but then he lost his house and it's rear impossible to set an appointment with someone that doesn't have a home. :(

Philadelphia is just crawling with missionaries on mondays cause we LOVE PHILLY! We ran into at least 25 other missionaries! crazzy! From the Rocky steps we walked down to the Temple site. I was sooo excited to see it! They have a little visitor center that Elder and Sister Carr are in charge of...They show you stuff and give you a rock from the temple quarry...but they were out to lunch so we didn't get any of that stuff. So sad :( But the temple is surely getting built and that was happy to see!
Then we walked over to love park. Its just lovely. At Christmastime they have this thing called the Christmas Village, which is TOTALLY my jam! They have themes and this year the theme is something like middle east or eastern europe...Turkey and Nepal kinda stuff. They just have loootttts of vendors with Turkish Towels (uhhh google it, basically I want 50 of them) and Handwoven Pashminas from Nepal :) swooonn. I was just in Heaven!!! We spent way too much time there and found more missionaries and ate spinach puffs from a man in lederhosen :) not sure why he was there but they were scrumptious.

Then we drove over to B____ and E___'s. They are the Hippies that own Old City Tee's. Its a little gift shop thing. We found more missionaries there. I guess you could say we had a successful P-day last week eh?

On Tuesday, we finally got to go see a doc for the sicky! yayyyyy Good news, It's not Lymes, It's not Arthritis (we were convinced it was for a day or two) It's....Some virus that nobody knows!!! yayyyy Apparently it's like Mono where you just have to suck it up and wait it out. At this point we were on week 4 so what are two more weeks of sick right? They told us they weren't going to test her for what kind of virus it was because it doesn't really matter cause you can't do anything about it. She's feeling better and better errrry dayyy! yayy!

Speaking of herr. Transfers are this week and Trainers only stay with their Golden's for 12 weeks....But The Lord has other plans for us because you can't break up B squared till errry one in West Chester is Baptized!!! This is so happy because now we get to do all the work and more that we couldn't do when Sister B was sick! This is going to be a transfer of Miracles!!! Just you wait!

Oh myyy, The West Chester Ward Christmas Party was this week (I'll attack pics) It was just magical! M___e came with us and got to meet all of the youth and she loved them! She told me she was going to hide behind me the whole time cause she's afraid of people but she was totally normal! The theme was a night In Bethlehem and we were all supposed to dress up :) I did of course the best that I could cause I love dressing up like I'm in Jerusalem...Sometimes I do it at home for fun cause it's cozy. We all brought cans of food to trade for stones (money) so we could buy fruits and cheese and nuts and pitas and beef and lentil salad! YUM! we brought blankets and sat on the floor (mom I wish i would have taken pics of how they decorated! It was just jaw dropping over the top!) They made a stage and the youth did a little program that was actually like the Nativity on steroids. Too legit! They had musical numbers and the bishopric were the wise men! When Joseph and Mary were wandering through Bethlehem looking for a place to stay, they finally were offered the stable. We were all invited to follow them to the stable, We walked around the entire church building halls and then out to the parking lot where they had set up a LIVE NATIVITY!!!!! With cows and sheep and goats and angles singing, shepherds and wise man and a real life baby Jesus! It was so wonderful!!! M____e loved it too! After the party we took her on a church tour and she loved it! She's going to be able to come to church with us in january when we switch times cause she works Sunday mornings. Then when M____e left, Brother Moyer told us to come out to where the animals were, Mr. B___y was going to come pick them us soon and he wanted us to meet him. Mr. B____y is the nices quaker man! (I finally met a Quaker!!!!) he owns a dairy that apparently sells the BEST chocolate milk in the united states or something.

Oh my I almost forgot to tell y'all the best part of the week! Zone training: it's this thing were your zone meets together and basically have district meeting as a zone...lots of learning and role playing etc. We had one last thursday and it was simply fantastic!!! President and Sister Anderson came to it (I just love them, you would too) The sister training leaders had us do the funniest role play! They set up the High Council room like a dining room and we had to pretend like we were at a members house for dinner. we all had a paper on our plate that told us how we had to act. I had to act like snow white. They went around and asked us questions about us, our investigators etc. So I got to tell them all about our seven small investigators that we found in the woods, usually we sing to them in lessons. President and sister anderson thought it was the funniest thing for some reason...I mean i'm not that funny am i? Sister B had to act "rude." President Anderson was asking questions now and he turned to her and asked if she had a boyfriend back home...she goes "yeah like 6." and President turned Bright Red! hahahaha I guess you had to be there but it was just the funniest. We did another role play on asking referrals and it was really good and insightful! as we were leaving the room to go back to the yw room, President turns to Sister B and I and told us that we are just so funny! We should start a comedy club! ohhhh yeahhhhh

Our investigators are doing pretty well considering we haven't been able to leave the apartment for more than an hour or two a day for the past 5 weeks. A__ just went home for Christmas but we are getting our iPads next week so we'll be able to facetime teach her over the break! yay! Katie set another baptismal date for January 12! We are picking G___ back up (she's the first baptismal invitation, lifes just been getting in the way of her progression, her sister is deathly ill in the hospital and she has to help watch her kids and stuff like that but she is soooo ready for the gospel!) B___ J____ and his girlfriend are supposed to be married in the coming week and that means he can get baptized soon!!!! yay!

Well Familia, I hope you are having a wonderful Christmastime just like I am! I love you to the "squishy and back" (-pika mi digio) have a happy happy happy!!!

LOVE, Sis Lyss :)