Liza, are you still online? I am sorry I didn’t get to your questions sooner. Yes, it did snow really hard and it was so beautiful. Grandma loved it (as long as she didn’t have to go out in it) as she hasn’t seen snow for a while. Spencer went sledding with his friends and had a ball. It is mostly melted now but I heard it is going to snow today. So, yes, it has finally gotten cold! It was nice, though, that the weather waited until after Halloween to get cold. I am going out tomorrow with grandma to get her a big black puff coat and some good boots.
Thanksgiving is Nov 26—a week and a half away! Wow. We will be in St. George with the Jarmans for a family reunion! I am in charge of bringing my sweet potato casserole, so if you make it, you can know that I made it too.
FYI, I called Olivia Esplin’s mom again and left another message. Later that day, Olivia called me! She sounds great. She said that she came home from her mission for health reasons and got back into BYU a tad late but it worked and she sounded good. She verified your missionary email address and said that she would contact you so I hope she did.
About your questions—you sounded pretty upset last week—I am guessing that things have calmed down, but here is my input:
About your leaders gossiping—Dad said he had some counsel for you, which I am sure is very wise, but here is my 2 cents:
You only have the power of your own example—nothing else works. You don’t have authority over these people. BUT, you have to have a heart at peace, not at war, to make any difference. You have to have love in your heart for these people to make any impact. There are several levels of what you can do.
1. Don’t participate and quietly try to change the subject or leave the conversation.
2. Say something nice instead. “Wow. I have never seen her this way. I see… (positive things) or “I am sure we don’t understand what is going on—I’m sure they didn’t mean that...
3. Name the gossip for what it is. “I always feel bad when I talk behind someone’s back. I think she is a good person…” or “sometimes when I am having a problem with someone, I try to see them through Heavenly Father’s eyes and think about how much He loves them"—remember Elder Renlund’s conference talk?
I don’t know what will work in any given situation, but again, people are only changed by love. Don’t bother with anything else because it doesn’t work. You have to look through Heavenly Father’s eyes at these gossiping missionaries and see His children that He loves that aren’t perfect and that for some reason feel like they need to tear people down to feel better about themselves. They need your love as much as the people they are bad-mouthing. If they think you are judging them, they will just turn and criticize you. You have to love them. I think it is okay to talk to your mission president about it, but you have to do it with love. “President, there is something that is making me so sad. I love my companions and some of the leaders are bad-mouthing them and it really hurts me. Do you have any advice for me?"
About your companion always being tired—I talked with my dad about it when we were out to lunch after Stephen’s temple day, and he said, “Is she sleeping well at night?” That is always the first question. If she has knee pain or anxiety or anything that keeps her from sleeping, it should be addressed.
If there are no physical issues, I think I would try and help her feel the joy of the gospel more. You could plan out your last Christmas together—do you remember my story about my 1st and 2nd Christmases, and how different they were? You could pull out the 24 Christmas stories I sent you last year and start reading them early and get excited and make some plans about secret gifts you could give investigators that you could make on P-day, or something like that. I am sure you could come up with something great. I think you could get her excited about going out with a bang. This is possibly her last Christmas, and yours, where she will be away from family—this is your last opportunity to celebrate Christmas in its most pure meaning—without the joy of family—where you can truly feel the joy of the Atonement all by itself—don’t waste this last experience!
You could also talk to her about Katie going back to her mission and how the people were so happy to see her—because she had given so much to them. Ask her to envision coming back to this area with her husband—what kind of welcome would she like? Does she want to be remembered as the missionary who faded away and no one remembers? If her boyfriend was a great missionary, she will want to be worthy of him. You marry who you are. Anyways, I don’t know if this angle will work. It is sort of appealing to her pride. But we are commanded to be perfect, and at least part of that is to seek for excellence for excellence’s sake—because that is what we expect of ourselves—our very best.
I am giving a lesson in RS in two weeks—I get to choose the topic, and I think I am going to talk about feeling the gifts of Christmas in your heart this Christmas season—and how we do that. The gifts of Christmas are really just the gifts of the Spirit—love joy peace hope faith—which I think we most often experience in the music of Christmas—the carols, the hymns—I think I will be playing a lot of music. But also in hearing stories. That is why I love those Christmas stories so much. I will let you know as I ponder more what I think about this topic.
Well, babe, I love you. Sorry that this is late and you probably won’t get it until next week.
I love you forever,
Mom
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