HELLO!

This is so fun to have the same preparation day as ky but also the WORST because I didn't get an email from him yet! Does he get a new companion this week? I have been DYING to know! OH im just praying that he loves his new companion and that they can support each other and be happy. I have been so impressed with his good attitude though. Ky can get along with anyone - just hope that they are nice and appreciate him! SO i can't wait! 

But it was SO great to get your emails and updates of everything at home. Mom i was laughing so hard when you were talking about your week! haha! Oh i love it - the unclogged toilets and laundry for days. Its so funny. I forget about all of those fun things of home! How im pretty sure everytime I would watch tyse I would find him out in the garden, soaking wet and covered with dirt, and he had had an accident... oh its so funny! I just love it. Super excited for all of the adventures again! :) 

Im so glad that karol is doing okay! HEALTHY! YAY!! And it was the best to see that scott is cancer free! Oh such a blessing. Grateful that everyone is healthy.  So sad about keg...not recovering as fast as he would like.  Im guessing they have to wait until he can walk on it normal again. Oh it must be so hard. I was thinking about him the other night and jsut how hard it would be. I would be going crazy and then having your time paused while all of your friends are out would be hard. BUT something I do know is that gods plan is BEST. There is probably someone that Keg has to meet towards the end of his mission and if he hadn't gone home for a while he would have missed him. Something like that I am sure - tricky situation but I know God knows what is best for sure! Ill be praying that it gets better quickly though. Crazy to think that I might see him again before he goes out. 

I got your message about the thanksgiving and I am so sad becuase nothing got delivered. Oh man. ITs the curse of thanksgiving here in england. there were problems last year too... oh but you are the BEST! Thank you for sending that. It really is the thought that counts with all of it. I LOVE YOU BOTH!! And im sure the people it went to probably  needed more than we did. Probably answered a prayer for them! :) But thank you! Next year how about lets just have thanksgiving together? Deal? :) BUT I DID recieve the CUTEST countdown i have EVER SEEN! OH i LOVE IT!!! Thank you! Our poor flat is still not decorated like it should be - we went over to tower bridge last week - i will send pictures! :) BUT with that i was so excited to open the present and see something to decorate with! its the BEST and i have the greatest time putting something up everyday! Can't believe that we are already on the 6th. Time just goes by quickly. ON friday i hit 17 months on my mission. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? I cant. 

Another thing i can't believe is that I can look a bit orange... I laughed so hard when I saw your emails last week about being an oompa loompa and how I shoudln't resort to celery... haha! OH its so funny! I know im jsut a mess over here. Just eating LOADS of carrots. And I did buy some celery.. but dont worry. I didn't eat as much as carrots. AND since apparently it isn't harmful for you i have jsut kept eating them! Its great. When I saw your emails about it I was reading it outloud to sister dorich and i got to the part where it said on average a person should eat about 3 big carrots a day and sister dorcich just BURST out laughing. I might eat more than that.... like lots more. Are you proud of me for being healthy! I actually eat so well. Like my diet consists of fruits and vegs and salad and chicken. And all i have to say is that i really just need a burrito. I havent really looked over the flight plans but I dont think i get home until late on wednesday but if its still open cafe rio or sweeto burrito might be necessary. if not that night the next day for sure. OH and dad will you have work off the next day? If you dont you should try and get it off so we can all just be together. And you can help me get back into all of it! and I can just catch you up on all of the stories and everything. But if you cant thats okay too. I'll just hang with mom and linds and tyse all day and then we can get all caught up that night when you are home!

With getting back into it though... the church has actually put a program in place to help with missionaries going home. It is called MyPlan. And so for a missionaries last transfer half of our personal study time is putting together goals for our future. THere are like 6 categories we set goals for - like social, spiritual, physical, family life, education and work life, media, missionary life... some other ones too I can't remember. BUT we set goals while still on our missions of things that we are going to do and not going to do when we go home so that we stay on track. And the idea is that you read through them once a week with your pat blessing once you go home. I have started it and LOVE it! Im super excited about it and it actually helps me feel a lot better about things - just having a plan of what to do! And with all of it too I am going to send it to both of you once it is finished! then you can know my plan as well and we can work on it together/you can hold me accountable to those things! It will be great! in my final interview with president we go through it as well so It will need his stamp of approval too! its great. so yes! i will keep working on it but then send it over as it gets closer!

And with BYU i am SO grateful I got the class! I ended up adding different religion class last week because I paniced when I for some reason was put on the wait list and only had like 5 credits. So i might go on and take myself off of the one religion class and pray that I get back into the earlier one and then hopefully i will get the class with mace. I dont know if any of that made sense... but I will fix it all! But YAY! So happy about that class! Just need to PRAY that the one with mace goes down and then the schedule will be perfect! but if not I will jsut figure it out when I am back home too. I just really would love to keep it just tuesdays and thursdays becuase then I CAN sleep at home! YAY!! Dont you worry mom. I am with you and linds on this one! I feel bad since we will be paying for it but especially at the begining I will be home with all of you! We have SO MUCH to catch up on and do together! No time for provo right away. SO yes! I just can't wait! So grateful to have the place though! THank you for doing all of that for me!

And your christmas countdown thing sounds SO fun! Sounds like you are celebrating christmas SO well. I love it. You asked about english christmas things... I am working on getting recipes so that we can make things when I get home too. But a really enlglish christmas tradition is something called Christmas Crackers - its not food like I originally thought. You can google it but they are almost like little presents... you crack them and inside they always have a toy and a joke and sometimes a sweet too! Its really fun! They are EVERYWHERE here! You usually set the table with them for christmas dinner and then everyone opens them together. If you can't find any I will buy some here and bring them home and we can do it next year too! :) They also have something called christmas pudding and christmas cake. Christmas cake is a lot like a fruit cake... really dense. But they eat that all through the season! As well as mince pies. AND CUSTARD is HUGE here! I LOVE IT too! I will bring some of the yummiest kind home. I think you would all love it! Make a nice crumble with hot custard... MONEY! I will make it for you! Get ready! And then the other really big thing is they eat Yorkshire puddings! See if you can go online and get a recipe and try them out. THey are SO YUMMY! They make them and then eat them drenched in gravy. yum yum. SO those are some tradiitonal things but with being in peckham... i just laugh. We are having our ward christmas party on saturday and they sent a sign up for the woman to bring things and so far we are having loads of jelof rice (all the africans), jerk chicken (all the jamaicans), and then one person is bringing sausage rolls (the one enlgish person in the ward!) It cracked me up! So christmas here will probably be really different. Lots of rice and fufu and chicken! I can't wait! :) 

Speaking of that ONLY 19 DAYS UNTIL WE GET TO SKYPE!!! YAYY!!! I can't wait! Its crazy it is already here. So we will just have to plan that out becuase of the situation with ky as well! i wish there was a way to make it work where we could all talk. I would LOVE to talk to him! But im not sure if it can? Let me know what is best, And this time I will make sure to actually do math right and tell you the right time... i can't even count back 7 hours... and I am thinking I can just jump back into BYU? yikes. 

But christmas here has been so fun! We are still just focusing everything on the christmas initiative and I LOVE IT! As hard as it is to be away from all of you this time of year I actually REALLY love being a missionary at christmas time. I think it is so fun! I thought i loved christmas before but being a missionary durring it is just something really special. So the more I have thought about it I am super grateful the last month of my mission is december. There is just something so neat about getting to serve Him durring the time everyone is celebrating Him. And what is even better is that I get to serve people who already love him. 

We were teaching one of our friends we have been working with this last week and she was saying how as Africans they just love jesus christ. She phrased it that they have a hunger for Him and for knowledge about god. And i thought that was such a great way to descibe it. I just can't tell you how much I love these people. I LOVE THEM. Becuase it is so true. they are so wonderful and warm and loving and they just hunger after christ. I show them the Book of Mormon and they are amazed and just want to know about it because they love their saviour and if it is talking about him they will listen and they want to know more. I just love it and feel like more people should be like that! We all should be like them. They are just so attached to him and will do anything to be closer to him. Its just so fun. I just love them. I remember when I first came to this area last year I was so overwhelmed and just a little intimiated by all of them - just these loud and strong and bold people but I have just the strongest feelings of love for them. And not just the africans but those from jamiaca and the carribean are the same way. They just love heavenly father. Im grateful for the example they have set for me! I hope to always be more like them when it comes to sharing about Him and what he has done for me. THey just go on and on and on... i love it. 

But sorry with that YES we use the video! It is nice that we have our ipads so we just show it with people and I love using it beucase it brings the spirit almost INSTANTLY! I just try and get anyone to watch it becuase I know it will touch them. And with music we are lucky as well to have our ipads... a lot of the time missionaries just download it from the computer to their ipads. But we also have DVD players in our flats to watch the districts for trainings so we can play CDs or use memory sticks with music on them as well! That is something that I need to get as well! I want to download all of the pictures onto a drive. Help me remember to do that so I have them for when I come home. I will have to turn in my ipad with all of the pictures on it. 

But things here work wise are so good. WE are SO busy. Its great. I feel like we just run around all the time. Yesterday we taught 5 lessons - 3 of which had members present and 2 of them were new investigators (new people that have a lesson and then set a return and want to learn more!) it was CRAZY! WE were at the chapel for a teach at 4 and then at 5 our next friend came and right after that lesson we taught charlie at the chapel at 6! I was thinking this was the way to do missionary work - just sit at the chapel and have all the people come to you back to back! It was great. We also have MLC this week - oh yes! Dad! THis is why we have preparation day today! We typically have MLCs on the tuesday but president had a meeting so we are having it tomorrow so they had our preparation day today! But yes, the work is going really well! WE are meeting with a lot of people which is so great but we are struggling to get them to keep commitments... so we are working on that! But we are teaching which is always so great! 

And sister dorich and I are doing so well. ITs so fun. Last week I sat down with her and we just talked about things. Just were open and talked about how we were feeling, on how we could improve, just got her insights on things and asked her how she was feeling and let me tell ya, talking things through WORKS MIRACLES! I have learned the importance of communicating on my mission. Since that things have been 100 times better. We get along great, our teaching is more in unity, and we are just happy! I just feel like we are friends now! Its so great. Still things to be patient about but we are doing so great. I have really learned that I just need to be better - once I just talked and then was less prideful things have been great. So thats a blessing as well! 

Another miracle is that Charlie gets baptised on FRIDAY!!! YAY!! Look for the picture on facebook! :) But oh he is a miracle. We have been SO blessed and his experience has taught me that the book of mormon is true! IT is the tool that converts people - not anything I say or teach. The bom has done it for charlie. Its just so great. 

And I love what you said about JOY! its so true. that is something that I have really thought about lately too - just the idea that we are meant to be happy. and not just meant to be happy but commanded to be. I love how that was a theme of conference - just how we have EVERY reason to be happy! We have a saviour how has overcome everything else and that is something to be happy about. No matter what else is going on. I have truly found that on my mission. I know that when we just trust him and push forward that there is not just joy but support all the time. I love the happiness the gospel brings! That is why mosiah 2.41 has always been one of my favorites.

BUT i hoep you have the most wonderful, christmas filled week! So grateful for your support while I am over here in england though. I just am incredible blessed. Thank you and I LOVE YOU!!!!!! So so SO much.  

See you next month. 

AHHH!! Did you just freak out becuase that is actually true... I did! Still staying focused BUT SO excited to give you the BIGGEST HUGS! 

I love you!

Sister Gwilliam