December 1

To All:
Matt is getting baptized January 29th!!!!! AHHH! I can't even believe it! 2 people just baptized and 2 more on date to be baptized! Matt is Steven's ( the one who just got baptized) brother in law. So Loni (who was originally the member) now has a member husband and a brother who will be baptized next month! Seriously there has been such a transformation there like you wouldn't believe! First of all Matt smokes and when we gave him and Steven the stop smoking program Matt didn't want to do it. Now he says he's ready and we're giving it to him on Thursday! yay! And he prayed for the first time at the end of our lessons! We were thrilled! I can't wait to see him change even more!
In other news we went to the temple today and I got to see Sister Hudson, my old MTC companion! It was so good to see her and catch up with her, it was like seeing a friend from home! The temple was amazing, I always feel so uplifted coming away from the temple. I just love it!
On Saturday was the Relief Society Christmas dinner! It was so fun! They did a gift exchange and had a potluck supper. It was so fun to sit around and just talk with the women of the branch. Verna came and I love that she is just socializing and has just immersed herself in the church. As we were eating and talking, I thought about how I have a special relationship with each of the women there. All but 2 had gone to a lesson with us and the other 2 have fed us and helped us plan activities. It's amazing how in 4 months I have grown to love these women and get to know them and their struggles and try to help build them up. The dinner was wonderful!
So I hope your Thanksgiving holiday was fun and better than ours :) We had Thanksgiving at a members home and the wife is American so they celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving in October and then American Thanksgiving in November and every year she invites the missionaries over and makes a huge meal. This year she is crazy busy working and didn't have time so we got KFC. woop woop! It was still so sweet of them to invite us over so we didn't mind, we just thought it was so funny that the one year she does KFC, we're here. :)
We are knocking on doors a lot! And finding more and more NEW people to teach which I love! we have 5 appointments set up this week for people who we have never taught before! last week we met with a girl her name is Tanya, she's a young Mom and has 2 daughters Cici (7) and Bella (2). We actually originally met her street contacting and we had given her a pass a long card and she said she wasn't interested and then we knocked into her last week and she said her daughter Cici was really interested. So we taught Cici and Tanya and oh man was that hard to teach the restoration to a 7 year old! holy cow! That was a humbling experience. You can't use words like restore or Atonement, or Prophet, or Dispensation. No way jose! And her attention span is pretty long for a 7 year old but still not that long. I did love it though, because as hard as it was, it's good to be challenged so you can learn!
Anyways it's been another great week! We have zone conference next week which is also our Christmas party and talent show. Sister Peaden and I are going to play a duet. It'll be a melody of Christmas songs and Sister Peaden is going to play the rockin' awesome recorder I bought her at the dollar store for 2 bucks! It actually sounds really good. The dollar stores here are FABULOUS! Have a wonderful week! Yay it's December already! It's so exciting! Thank you for your prayers and letters!

love,
Sister Crane