The Goose is Getting Fat

 

Christmas Eve Nativity with the Cahoons and Ogdens

The Goose is Getting Fat

December 26, 2023

The first week in our new area! We have found out that we are almost definitely not getting a car. Very sad. But we did get bikes!

Monday I spent almost all day mopping every inch of the floor in our apartment. That was something. I also feel so proud of myself after making something cleaner, so it was a very good pday. Not to mention I feel more comfortable in my apartment now.

Tuesday we had a fun dinner with a member. She gave us a ride (hallelujah) and on the way home, she overshared quite a bit about her life. I am actually quite proud that people are comfortable enough upon barely meeting us to trust us with their hard times. How much of that is the badge on my chest, I may never know.

Wednesday we had a big mission Christmas party 🥳 The whole mission was there. It was crazy! We got to do some fun service projects together, and then Sister Basha (the mission President's wife) surprised us with the news that we were all going to the movie theater to watch the new Disney movie, Wish!! You should have seen the look on all of our faces 😆 It was very fun. It was a bit like being children again because none of us have seen a Disney movie in forever (except for the newbies I guess) Everyone clapped at the end. Not me though. That's embarrassing.

Then we had a big dinner and a devotional with lots of Christmas music. It was all very nice. I only got slightly overwhelmed (hyperbole in use here) and had to leave for some quiet time during the dinner. Crying in the club 😗✌️ All sorts of new experiences on my mission 😌 But other than that, the party was wonderful! 

Thursday we had district council. Everyone in our district was talking about how we all need to be GRINDING and NOT BE BUMS and BE MEN (I added that last one, but there was a disturbing amount of testosterone in play) We also were flamed (not mentioned, but clearly the intended listeners) for not doing more work despite not having a car or bikes or a clean apartment. We should have walked and found 5 million new people the 3 days we had in our new area I guess. So afterwards my companion and I took a 30 minute walk in the park next door, so we wouldn't accidentally kill anyone 😁 This zone is off to a great start. *salute emoji*

But Thursday night we were able to meet one of our new members. He's 10 and he is salty. He reminds me A LOT of Alexander actually 😁 He is learning German and he told me "Du bist groß" which for all the non-german speaking readers means "you are big" Which honestly is a first for me. Nobody says I'm big! I guess all my biking is making me big and strong just like I've been told it would 😈 Anyway, I'm glad I took those 3 years of German in High-school. Really paying off now.

He also showed us his bearded dragon, Timmy. It was pretty cool. He's kind of hyper, so he ran upstairs in the middle of our convo, and them came back with a lizard. I could tell Sister Maughan was a bit nervous, but I asked if I could hold Timmy (after figuring out that Timmy does NOT bite, despite James sneakily telling me he did). He is so smart, but its funny that all smart, salty 10 year olds use their brains to get out of as much work as possible. Luckily I had a blue raspberry jolly rancher in my pocket to act as a bribe during our lesson. He gave a beautiful testimony and then happily ate his candy (again reminds me of a certain 10 year old back home 😏)

Friday we had an awesome, productive day! We biked down to our church building and planned our week. We also got some invites for people to come to church! Then we went knocking for a bit before dinner. It is interesting that people choose the most random things to decide that we "mormons" are weird and they don't like our church. The one guy who answered the door, said he has "no interest in being a God of the universe," so he passed on the Christmas church service. Allrighty then.

Saturday morning we had a early Christmas breakfast with the Sartain's 🥳🥳 The food was yummy. We also played the name game and watched "Mr Krueger's Christmas" which I haven't seen in a while. I recall refusing to watch it the past few years because it's depressing. I stand by that judgment. It's not all that bad, but it's not really all that great either. But it was a very fun party, and Sydney Sartain drive us home and played us some music 🎶 

Then we sent everyone and their dog a text about church. We actually had several people respond! That took some time.

Sunday was funny because there were sooooo many people at church, but we don't know any of our members yet, so we had no clue who was visiting and who wasn't. But at least they all came! I was incredibly disappointed that none of my wards sang the best Christmas hymn ever written, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" but I sang it to myself afterwards.

We had a very fun Christmas-eve dinner with a couple of families from our wards. They celebrate together every year, and we got to join in. We had a yummy dinner, played some fun games, enacted the nativity, and frosted cookies. Then we came home and opened our presents because both our families celebrated on Christmas eve and we're impatient 😌

On the actual Christmas day, we made cinnamon rolls in the morning and brought them to our zone activity. We had a gingerbread house contest and a white elephant gift exchange. Not bad! 

Also our dinner was so yummy 😋 We had this drink called wassail (non-alcoholic of course) and it was de-licious.

So that ends my weekly adventure! 

Spiritual Thought:

1 Nephi 20:10

"For, behold, I have refined thee, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction."

I've been thinking the past couple of days how God never tells us we should just give up on something. If it's hard and worthwhile, He never says "yeah this might be too hard for you, you can skip it" He also pushes us forward and tells us we can! He knows what He's doing, and He knows we can do it!

Love you guys!

Love, Sister Aysha May Entrikin 

Addresses:

House - 2013 Meridian Way, Rocklin, CA 95765

Mission office - 8583 Watt Avenue, Antelope, CA 95843