Almost Time to Go!

Gellukige Kerste Avond Familie!!!
Happy Christmas Eve!

Today is a fabulous Christmas eve! The Christmas spirit is totally alive and my companion and roommates and I are planning on having a fabulous Christmas. Everyone has promised us that we will have an absolutely amazing Christmas program tonight and tomorrow, so we're all excited! My roommates and I are planning on waking up early and opening presents and stockings in our pjs before we get ready for breakfast. It will be an early morning, but that will make me feel completely at home.

I have been so blessed to have such loving family that sends me so many goodies during the holidays. I got your other package with my little presents and goodies in it. They look soooo tasty! The stockings you sent have made our room very Christmas-y and my roommates are all excited to open our stockings! Actually, I have 2 stockings- one from you all, and a rather large stocking from Ryan... it'll be twice the fun! We have a Christmas Eve fireside tonight, and then 2 firesides tomorrow and one mystery activity that we haven't heard anything about yet. I am really excited! I'll write to you all tomorrow and let you know what exactly is going on. You'll have to be sure and send me some pictures as soon as you can after Christmas. I'm just dying to see them, and once I go to the Netherlands (in 11 days! ) picture delivering will be much more difficult. I'm just dying to see what everyone got for Christmas and how you holiday was having the little family with you and all.

We still haven't heard about our travel plans and visa- we have heard that we'll most likely hear about it on Friday, so keep praying for a successful visa acquisition! Of course, I feel so unprepared as far as the language goes, having more time to study dutch would probably be a blessing ;) Of course they keep telling me I'm doing fine, so I guess either way, the Lord will send me when I am good and ready... or at least when He thinks I am! In my class, our teachers choose personas and pretend to be "investigators" that we tract into and then teach throughout our week. One of my teachers decided that the Zusters needed a challenge and decided he was an anti-Mormon atheist who is quite insulting. We have been attempting door contacts for like 3 weeks, and we usually get our classroom door slammed in our faces after a very rude rebuttal about us needing to go back where we came from and get boyfriends (all in Dutch of course). The other day, however, we finally got him to agree to give us a return appointment. He said we could have only 10 minutes to show him that God exists. We taught him about the first vision, and afterward, he told us we did a great job, and that we have learned to deal with combative situations that many people do not have experience with until well into their missions. It has been a very good learning experience for me, and kind of fun- surprisingly, my dutch is very good if I am very mad at the person I am talking to and bearing testimony that I am not, in fact, brainwashed, but that I know for myself that these things are true. The gift of tongues just has a way of working when you need it most.

Oh, I got the shoes you had sent- both pairs! I received them just a day apart from each other. Should I just mail the second pair back to you? I have a few shirts I need to mail back home before I leave, so that would be the easiest. Just let me know through Dear Elder as soon as you can and I can get that taken care of. We're definitely down to the wire- this is my second to last e-mail before I leave! Oh, and Daddy, I got the package you sent with the pens- My district LOVES them! They all use their "white parkers" whenever the opportunity arises, and carry them around in their shirt pockets- apparently it makes them look like "cool missionaries". I think I accidentaly told you there were 8 of us in my district- there are actually only 6, but my two teachers were totally excited to have white parkers as a Christmas Gift from our district. You are officially the coolest Dad in the district Daddy-o! Thank you so much for sending them!

I am feeling great. I have been blessed with excellent health and a surprisingly optimistic attitude despite my deficiencies in a language I must speak constantly in only 11 days. I have re-dedicated myself to working even harder than before to make my last week and a half as effective as possible before I leave. Today is one of our "English fast" days where we speak only dutch all day- it is a lot of fun. We can communicate pretty well during the day. Our sentence structure may be completely ridiculous, but we get the general point of what we are trying to say, and it is a bit of a relief to think that even if I sound like a speech-delayed 3 year old, people will still get the basic idea I am trying to convey :) My teacher told us that by the end of our transfer, people will understand what we are saying and we'll understand most of what we hear- so there's hope!! YAY! That means only 6 more weeks of utter confusion in a foreign land... not bad, plus I hear the cheese is great in the Netherlands! Baguettes and Cheese- here I come!

I hope you all have a very, very merry Christmas and that the true spirit of the Season is with you over the next couple of days. Remember how blessed we are to have a knowledge of a little baby born in Bethlehem who would die for each of us so that we may live in eternal happiness with our families and loved ones. We are so blessed. I am so grateful for our Savior and the chance we have this season to put aside our cares of the world and just remember what He did for us. He gave us everything we have and everything we could ever have by allowing us to be redeemed from our sins and become perfect through His atoning sacrifice. I love you all and wish you the merriest of Christmas seasons! I will miss you all, but I am so grateful to have the chance to give my Savior the gift of my time in his service this year on His birthday. Gellukige Kerst!

Love,

Zuster Cherie Gulliver