December 8, 2014

Dear Mom,

 

The new missionaries are here!!!! I was so excited going to pick them up from the airport on Wednesday and was the first to be waiting at the arrival gate. President and Sister Weidmann were there too, and they told us that Elder Prince and Krajnc would be training, along with me. I hadn't known beforehand that one of us would be the official trainer, I just figured me and Sister Schofield would both do it together. Elder Prince spotted them first, and then I went around to give Sister Hassell a hug. I remember her saying, "Is this really happening?" And another one of the first things she said to me as we were waiting for the APs at the curb outside was, "I read your blog." Apparently Elder Rigby's dad found it and mailed a bunch of my letters to him via DearElder while he was in the MTC, which Elder Rigby then passed on to the others once he was done reading them. He said to me, "I felt a little invasive reading them because they all start out, 'Hi Mom'. But they were so cool and I got to find out about everything and it kept me totally pumped to come in-field." I thought it was pretty cool too, that they read them. Unexpected. He served in Payson for I think a month while they got his visa ready.

 

It's so nice having new people. I feed off of their excitement and hope. It's nice knowing enough that I'm able to help them.

I forgot to mention that President Weidmann made an exception for Macedonia to the no-teaching-opposite sex rule. Woohoo! We can teach men again. And now that we're a threesome with Sister Hassell we don't have to bother our members so much to come to a lesson (not in public) when it's with a man. Like Blagoy, for example. For most of my mission I have only contacted men because I didn't want another Benjamin to happen. That backfired the other night when a woman asked me out. So now I'm contacting men again.

 

You know the He is the Gift video I sent you last time? So I have read in my friends' emails that in their missions around the world they are all doing these pass-along cards with the website to the video. President Weidmann mentioned it in a letter to us and I assumed that as with everything else it wouldn't apply to Macedonia. But then an amazing thing happened!! We asked Zoki to translate the card into Macedonian and when President came down with the new missionaries he gave us all cards in Macedonian! So awesome! The most professional-looking ones we have ever had. And it's so great and easy because everyone can connect with Christmas and it segways so easily into talking about the Savior. Plus watching a 2 minute video at home is a much easier commitment that coming to church or meeting with us. Call it a Christmas miracle. Now I just need to convince President Weidmann to send us more because we don't have nearly enough to last until January 7, which is when they celebrate it here. Elder Prince even worked on making the video in Macedonian and we're going to see if it can be played from the big tv screen in the center of Skopje. That would be so amazing. Fingers crossed!

The past couple of days have been super busy with getting the new missionaries settled and all the legal stuff and everything. We had training with President Weidmann for the first two days and went up to Mount Vodno and read Macedonia's dedicatory prayer for the first time ever. We had Zone Training in Kosovo on Saturday and today for p-day we all went bowling. 

 

Alma 39:15, "And now, my son, I would say somewhat unto you concerning the coming of Christ. Behold, I say unto you, that it is he that surely shall come to take away the sins of the world; yea, he cometh to declare glad tidings of salvation unto his people."

 

Merry Christmas and I love you,

Sister Riddle