Alicia! 12-23-13 Oak Grove, TN/Ft Campbell, KY

HEY!!!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS THIS WEEK!!! Haha! I love you all! I did the math last night. Kind of freaked me out a little bit. I only have 17 pdays after this one... Whoa right?! Getting down to the line here! It is funny too how even after this much time being out, I still feel like I am constantly having to adjust to the work. I love it though. I really do :) Dad! You are so right about stupid sugar! The last week or two I was SUPER moody and I finally chalked it up to sleep, diet, exercise and water quality. So I bought some good filtered water, went to bed earlier and stopped eating sugar. Needless to say, I feel LOADS better! Airborne has been helping to. I have kicked out a cough before it even had a chance! I was a bit worried for a minute there... the weather here was literally starting to kill me. I could feel the effects of symptoms that seemed like SAD. So I was wondering if there was a way to get some of that Vitamin D? Or whatever the sun vitamin is? I miss that shiny, bright happy guy up in the sky a lot! We have had some absolutely crazy weather here too! The other night we were out visiting a less-active family when all of a sudden the wind started blowing like crazy and it started this vicious downpour! It turned into a tornado watch... it was really scary. But we survived without any problem. See?! An email to prove it! I am excited for summer again someday... Sunlight is my bestest friend! 

You are really probably not curious about all that random stuff I just told you. I just had to tell you! CHRISTMAS!!! First, I am glad the tradition lives and you watched the Magic Christmas Tree. I was telling my companion about that delightful flick the other day! Watch it again for me will ya? :) Love that movie! Second, skyping!!! Yay! We will be Skyping from the senior couples computers in the Fort Campbell area. I don't know if they have that Google video stuff...? I know they have Skype for sure! I am worried it would take a bit of time to get it all set up? I don't know! Maybe we will have a chance to call first to make it all happen. We get to call for 45 minutes and it works best for us to call at 4:30 our time and 3:30 your time. Hopefully that works for y'all! 

I am glad Mel made it home ok! I love her :)

Let's see here... this week was a bit of a rollercoaster. As is life I suppose. I have a really great companion, we are just different. And I have learned that I have a hard time being around some people for extended periods of time. I have to learn to overcome this over and over again because everyone is SO different. She is very sweet and very patient though and I am learning to accept her for exactly who she is. We are going to have a great Christmas :) 

Liz is doing great! I love that chica! She was confirmed on Tuesday. It was really powerful- as everything is with that wonderful girl! The picture I sent home is her husband and 2 kids. They are in the process of a divorce right now- which is why we haven't really been teaching them all together. The baptism was only the 2nd time we had met her husband. He needs the gospel for sure though! Everyone does... They left on Friday morning for New York and we won't see them again until after January 5th. Which is pretty much the story of EVERYONE who lives here! Military people are asked to try to take their leave around the holidays. So there are only a few families around for Christmas. Thankfully, now we have a car so we can go all over the Hopkinsville ward and not worry about Fort Campbell too much- unlike Thanksgiving where we got stranded. In fact, we have a BUNCH of families that want us to come over and see them so that is exciting :) We will have breakfast with the Stake President and his family, presents, visits with more families, skyping, dinner with the Brock family, second dinner with the Carlisle family- it will be heaps of fun! 

We found another really neat investigator! She was supposed to come to church two sundays ago but she got lost. She said she ended up in the middle of nowhere in this scary place that looked like a storage shed. There was a sign outside that talked about devil-worship. She freaked out and drove off realizing that that wasn't the right place... oh opposition! Anyways, she still really wants to come so we are mapquesting it for her this time :) Kelly is her name. She is awesome! 

The work continues to move forward! I am grateful for my call as a missionary. I cannot believe how quickly time moves and that I am getting so close to the end. I know though, that this experience has taught me SO much about the Atonement, about my Savior Jesus Christ and about myself. I know that I am a daughter of a loving Father in Heaven who knows me and cares about me. I am sincerely grateful for the opportunity to be out at this Christmas time to be able to share the blessings of the restored gospel with so many of God's beloved children. Miracles keep happening. Even though this area is one of the most challenging that I have served in, somehow we continue to find and teach prepared people. We have been out tracting a LOT and we have found several new, prepared investigators this way and also some less-active, part-member families. We are going to have a great transfer full of miracles! Let's pray for more baptisms!! :)

I love you all so much! I am so excited for Wednesday!!!! You have no idea :) 7 months is a long time to go without seeing your beautiful faces :)

LOVE YOU LOTS!!! Be safe!

Merry Christmas!

I love you always,

Sister Alicia Johnson