Amy's Christmas phone call home details and her December 27th letter!

Hello everyone! 

 

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas.  We had a wonderful, special day that ended with a sweet conversation with Amy.  What a treat!  She sounded so positive, healthy and thrilled with life.  I am grateful that she is able to serve in this way and that her mission is going so well.  Here are a few things that we learned in our conversation with her:

 

1.  She is living in a two story apartment with three other sisters.

2.  There are ants and cockroaches all about (!), but she has become used to them and just knows that she has to wash all dishes before using them.  Ick!

3.  There is much poverty.  Many of the people live in homes smaller than her bedroom here.  They draw curtains to separate spaces in the home.

4.  She lives in part city, part country.  They often walk near rice fields.

5.  She has NOT received our Christmas package!  Grrr.  We sent it in early December and were told it would arrive in 7-10 days.  Next year, I'll send it in early to mid November!

6.  She spent her Christmas day going to different investigator, less active and non-member homes taking goodies and singing carols.

 

Thank you again for your love, prayers and support of my girl,

 

Wendy Toms

(proud mom!!) 

It was sooo good to hear your voices and talk to you all!  You all sound so good. Thank you for all the love and support.  Christina, I forgot to ask you about your finals and your recital!  How did everything go??  And Steph and Richie, too. Did you all survive?

Mom, it sounds like you were busy, busy this year with cooking! I wanted to make some type of Christmas goodie for our zone Christmas party, but we don't have an oven, so that scratched out most of the cookies. Also, it's pretty hard to find any of the normal cookie-type ingredients like chocolate chips or butterscotch chips. I was hoping to make butterscotch haystacks, but I guess it wasn't meant to be. :) Sister Cope had a yummy recipe that we made instead.

Jessica (her brother's girlfriend), it was nice meeting you, or at least hearing your voice. :-)  I don't know you very well, but I'm excited to get to know you. My mom sent me a pic of you and Tyler, so I also know what you look like now! It was a cute picture.

Dad, you sounded great. Thank you for your support and great suggestions and advice. I needed to hear it. Love you!

I love this time of year. The Christmas season brings so much joy to everyone. It's so much fun to see peoples' faces light up as we visited, served, carrolled, and shared messages with them. The greatest gift our Heavenly Father has ever given us is his son, Jesus Christ. He loves us soooo much that he was willing to give his begotten son to us so we could have a way to return back to our Heavenly Father's presence again. The way we can try to make it up to him and show our gratitude to Him
is by living our lives in such a way that would make Him proud. We must strive to be the best that we can and live the commandments and always strive to be better.

I love you all so much! You are always in my prayers. Thank you for all you do for me and for each other.

Love,
Sister Harston

P.s. I got to use my ASL the other day!! We were in the city for our zone Christmas conference and we went out to get a little something to eat before the meeting started. Two young men were chatting away in sign, so of course I went over and introduced myself! After chatting for a little bit, I told them who we were as missionaries and asked them if they'd be interested in hearing more about our message. I got their contact info, and some other missionaries will be able to contact them. It was awesome.