Family!

Hellooo!!!!  I"m alive, well, safe, and most of the time warm! haha- the other day we got only 3ish inches of snow, and we were grounded- meaning we had to stay inside our apt. and not drive. the roads were pretty bad. but ma, i'm tellin' ya, I LOVE MY BOGGS!!!!!! they are sooo warm, and soooo comfy!!! man, i can go anywhere in those things. i'm truckn' thru the slush-no biggy! gimme some more snow, show me what cha got!! haha. i seriously am in love! thank you over and over again!!! i get so many comments from the sisters who want them! hehe  and the other ward members. they like 'em! so thanks! 

I'm so excited b/c the other set of sisters that serve her in state college get to come and spend the night at our apt. on Christmas Eve! so today we went to Walmart and went shopping for goodies to eat! so that'll be fun! we have a little Christmas tree that s. Bradshaw's mom sent and there are some presents under it. cute! we've got Christmas lights up too! we're gettn' in the season! and I've put your tinsel up! and the ornaments! i love it all! thanks mommy dear! the ward members here are soo nice! this one cute older sister, sister norten is a retired CIA agent and her husband is one too! and the sisters tell me that she still packs heat!! haha. she's like in her 70's 80's? so cute! anywho, she gave each of us sisters a huge back full of goodies, i'll send you a pic. and a card w/ $20 inside! people are so kind to us!

 this last week has been great! even though most of the students are gone, we've still had some great lessons. we are teaching this one guy named, Chen Li- from Beijing. He is so cute and sweet. He said the closing prayer in our lesson, for the first time. he said thank you God for sending these sisters to me to help me not be so depressed anymore. he is so sincere. he brought us theses tassels from China as a gift!  

One of the new converts- Sanu from Nepal, has been team teaching w/ us, and it's been great to have his support and testimony. he gave us really pretty scarves from Nepal, so I'll send a pic of that too! it was awesome,  last night we combined w/ the other sisters in a lesson, and we had Chen there, and their investigator Adam, the one i told you about last time that pronounces Jeses "cheese" and gospel "gossip" so cute! they were there last night w/ us, and sanu, and it was so cool to look around the room at all the countries represneted: China, Nepal, USA, and Mexico ( Sister Villa, one of the sisters) felt like Temple Square! it's been great! 

so what do you all have planned for Christmas? ohh, wish i could be there w/ you! miss you! it'll be good tho, this next week coming up, we have a lot of service planned: The Red Cross, Old Folks Home, helping out in the ward w/ getting gifts for a less fortunate family, caroling, ringing the Salvation Army bell. i'm super excited! and really, this is what Christmas is all about, serving others and loving everyone. i'm excited to get to do this! yay!

well, i'd betta be going! i love you so much! and hope you have a wonderful Christmas!!!!! love you sooooooooo much! miss you!!!!!!!

love,
sister harris

Dear Family!

yesterday was crazy!!! we didn't really get a big storm it just rained all day, and church was canceled, can you guess why? rain you may think, that's nuttn'! haha! their rain freezes immediately when it touches ground or your windshield! no way! its so weird! and its really dangerous, cuz it just looks like regular rain, and when you look at the ground it just looks wet, but when you slide your foot on it, its just a pure sheet of ice. soo weird. never seen that before. so yah, we just stayed inside all day, i actually took a nap. my first, i repeat my first nap in 10ish months?? when i realized that i had time to sleep i was in shock. haha, i almost started crying. hahaha. it felt nice.

 the work here has been great. we've been working w/ a part member family, the husband is non-member and his wife is an inactive, they recently lost their baby SIDS- and the wife-Renae wanted to start coming back to church and now the husband-Justin has been taking the lessons. really a sweet family. we committed him to being baptized on Jan. 2nd. so we'll see how that is going. we are also working w/ anther lady who's been excommunicated- Deborah- she is dying of some disease- and so it makes is hard for her to come to church, she is such a kind lady who has such a desire to do good and to come to church,she usually gets rides to church but yesterday, she said-this time, i want to do it on my own. she's really making progress, unfortunately both of these investigators were actually going to come to church and then Church was canceled! sad, but they are showing their desire, and it just makes me so happy to see it, you really grow a love for these people and want them to happy, and to grasp the gospel, b/c you know how much it will add to their lives. i just love this work. 

oh funny! we did earlier this week get a big dump of snow, and for some reason the plow man decided to box our car in!!!! i took a pic of it so you can see! oh man! well, I'd best be going! i love you all so much! there are such good people here in state college! 

oh! we helped out w/ the Victorian Christmas- in Bellefonte, PA- they have all of these old Victorian Houses that are HUGE and gorgeous!!!! one of our less actives had us over for dinner, and she took us thru her whole house, man, reminds me of Pride and Prejudice hows its all done up, but as service we helped w/ tours at a members home. funny story- at this less actives house, we had dinner, and we were waiting for her hubby to come in from  working outside, we were starving from fasting all day :)  anywho, we' were soooooo hungry, food is on the table, we are just standing there waiting, husband comes in, goes upstairs, wife is tired and stressed w/ getting her house ready for the tours, she just takes off to who knows where, and there we are, waiting for literally 20 mins, starving, left by ourselves not knowing where they went, and we wait, and wait, we call out to them, no response, finally we said OK we are going to wait 10 more min, and we are leaving and buying a hamburger at some joint down town, finally  the man, comes in , says his wife is upstairs mad, so we are like uhhh akward, so we run upstairs and she's crying in bed, and we talk to her and comfort her and then we all come down stairs and eat. things are better, but man, it was such a funny situation and very awkward. anyways, thought i'd share w/ ya'll . love you sooooooooooooooooo much!!!!!!!!!! 

Angela

hey hey hey!!!! its me!!!!

well, things here are good! and extremely cold!!! it has been snowing the past couple of days, and the temp is below freezing, in the 20's? but it's a bitter bitter cold. oh man. we go running in mornings, and it hurts my nose to breath. this morning we stayed inside b/c there is so much ice on the roads.

 the work here is great! we've been working a lot w/ less active families or part member families, and our new converts. they had about 3 baptisms right before i got here, one guy from Nepal- Sanu and a real sweet quiet guy -Nick and a girl who totally reminds me of Corinne- her name is Megan. but it was really neat, they went and did  Baptisms for the first time at the Manhattan temple. it is neat to meet w/ them and to hear their testimonies- so simple but yet so powerful. it's amazing how the gospel changes you, and being able to see that change in others is so rewarding, I've only been here 2 wks, and i can't wait to see more of the growth that will take place.

 it was lots of fun, last night we went tracting- how we pick where we will go- we look at the city map, say a prayer, and then we'll say a couple of names of streets that have come to mind and we all felt good about Sandra Lane. so that's where we tracted last night- we found two families! right next door to each other. we sang them carols too, and that just totally added to it all, they really seemed to enjoy it.

 oh! speaking of singing! this last Saturday-was our big Christmas program that the student branch and the two family wards put on together. it was held at the spiritual center here on campus- its really neat, its just a big building that any denomination can come to and do their own worship, bible study, or whatever, it where we have our institute classes, and where we have a lot of our teaching appt. the branch pres. said that in feb. they are going to start having our sac. mtg there for the student branch, that way it is more open to having investigators come- right there on campus, so as we had our big Christmas thingy- in the next room over were Muslims doing their meditations, it was cool. so anyways, our program!--we had people in the ward that brought their nativity scenes and set them up on tables and then in the background on the side were musical performances going on at the same time, then we had  our missionary table set up w/ pics of Christ and DVDS and B.O.M. that we wrapped up for people to take, there was also a table w/ cookies and hot chocl. and apple cider. it was a really good atmosphere, and we had a pretty good turn out. we got to sing Silent NIght. we were the last musical number, and i sang the first verse solo! ahh! it turned out ok tho! :) so that was our big thing that we'd been passing out fliers for to everyone. 

 oh man, this last wed. we went out in front of the student library- and set up a table and we have B.O.M, dvds, pamphlets all sorts of stuff- and we stand there and ask people to take surveys- the surveys have questions about their opinions of GOD and the plan of Sal. just to get them to think, and then they have the option of leaving their info so that we can contact them, we usually get about 7-10 people that refer which is awesome- but man, i have never felt so rejected. SO different than on Temple Square! :(:(:(:(:(:( you walk up to people and you start to talk to them and they totally just blow you off. man, that was so hard to take, cuz i'm not used to that! haha poor me! I've gotta toughen' up my skin. some people are nice and take the survey, but there are others that do the complete opposite, but oh well. so yah, just thought I'd mention that, we do that every wed in the morns.

so yah, the broadcast was really good! seeing my temple square made me homesick for it! that my place! and that's our choir! but its good to be here!  well, I'm going to try and see if i can get the pics to work this time. love you so much!

fun to hear how everything is going! what are the fam's plans for Christmas? love you soooo stinking much!!!!
the pics- one is from the Christmas party- the family is one we are working w/, the mom is a recent convert- slightly inactive- the other peeps are her mom, and then her friend and boy friend and then the little kid by me is her son, he's a cutie. the other pics are me and my compies!!!! love you mucho!!!!!!!