Christmas? I think yes!

Hey Mom!

This week was SO COLD! It was so fun though! I got to break out ALL of my winter gear so that was fun. Literally, I wore all of the winter gear I own... it was so cold haha! I'll talk more about that in a bit. 

I got my Christmas package! And The slacks you sent me. Thank you for that! I have not opened any of the presents yet though, they are placed under the tree we have in our apartment, waiting for Christmas. (and of course, our presents form the PJ elf for Christmas Eve!) I'm so excited cause on Christmas Eve, My district is going Caroling that night and then we're going to get Slurpees! It'll be so fun. 

I bet Jordan did such a good job. I know he was just a great missionary. I hope I can be as good as him! That's also super cool that you were able to talk to a lot of Jordan's family! There's so much good that is going to happen in his family. It'll be great. 

So this week got SO COLD. Virginia weather is just the weirdest thing on the planet. I will never understand it. On Thursday and Friday, it got down into the 20's (which on  a bike is not very fun) I had on all my winter gear, including my beanie, and my scarf wrapped around my face! Man we were out in the cold most of those days too, but it was so fun. We were just trying to find people to teach, and we didn't find anyone really, but if we don't find anyone to teach it's not going to be because I didn't try as hard as a could! It was a good feeling to stay out. I love missionary work!  But the weirdest part about the weather, yesterday morning it got up to 80 degrees. I just don't understand! And then by about 6 last night it was back into the 40's and raining. Crazy haha! We stayed out in the cold last night though and coming back to some nice warm hot chocolate felt really good. 

I got to go on an exchange with our Assistants to the President earlier this past week and it was a lot of fun! They're in a trio right now, so they just dropped one of them off with us to spend the day with us! It was cool. I learned a lot from him and found some ideas to improve my missionary work and to use my time better. 

The Welkers came to church again this past Sunday! Well Jasmine didn't (that's Ashley's sister) but Brother Welker did and he's not a member! It was actually a surprise to see him there. We are really going to start trying to work with him soon. 

Tomorrow our mission is having a Christmas conference! I'm excited for it. Elder Richins, one of my zone leaders, and I are going to sing What Child is This? and a sister in my district is playing the piano. It'll be good! And then my district is going to sing Stars were Gleaming from the Children's songbook, and I'm playing the piano for that! It's going to be a lot of fun! 

I'm so excited for Christmas this next Sunday! That sounded like you had a packed house at church yesterday to have them sing Christ the Appletree! I love that song so much. Christmas is going to be awesome, and I will call y'all about 3:00 your time!!! I can't wait to see y'all. It's been a long time since I've seen ya. 

I hope y'all have a great week leading up to Christmas. I love you so much mom! Don't party too hard! My ponderizing scripture leading up to Christmas is Alma 7:7 "For behold, I say unto you there be many things to come; and behold, there is one thing which is of more importance than they all-- for behold, the time is not far distant that the Redeemer liveth and cometh among his people."  The Savior truly did come to Redeem each one of us. In verse 11 later in the same chapter it goes on to tell us what he Redeemed us of. I love my SAvior Jesus Christ and will forever be grateful for what he did for me and for all of us. 

I love you so much Mom! I can't wait to see you. 

Love you,

Elder Collier

Christmas Time is Here!

Hey Mom!!

I'm doing pretty great! Mission life keeps moving forward... a little too quickly. I'm fine I didn't get hurt after my bike wreck! I shouldn't have said anything... haha! But I just got my bike back this week, so it's working fine! It's so much better than the bike I was borrowing. And yes like a tan or light tan  color! We can wear light colors for slacks! I just checked the dress and grooming section so it's approved! Recently they've started to approve light colored clothes.

Restaurants, we have all kinds! Panda, 5 guys, Noodles and Company, Subway, Taco Bell... there are so many different ones! As long as it is not Burger King... haha! Norfolk has a pretty big selection of things. 

I can't believe Jordan is home. That's so cool to think! I love him so much, he's such a great example to me. Just him going on a mission and his conversion story has helped me so much in my life in general! Not to mention my mission. 

So for the call on Christmas, we can do Skype or facetime! I haven't confirmed with the member that we're going to be at whether Skype or Facetime would be better, but just in case, what is your Skype information? And we're having dinner with those members so maybe we could do our call around 6 over here, and 3 for y'all? If that works. I think we could do it anytime, cause we'll be done with church by 12:30 or 9:30 for you. Elder Hargraves family I think will be done with church early too. Let me know what you think!

We've been doing good over here! IT's been COLD the past few days. It got down to the 20s on Friday and Saturday night! I had to bust out my scarf and my beanie! Now snow yet... just freezing weather. I think being on a bike makes it a little colder just cause you're outside all the time. But it's been a lot of fun! People will let us in more because of how cold it is! 

We have been really struggling to find new investigators recently. We haven't found one in the past few weeks. But a lot of the new investigators that we've found in the past haven't been committed at all, so we haven't seen them in a while. We think it's because we're spending more time in the nicer areas so it's harder to have lessons with people. But the lessons that we are going to end up having are going to be much more quality lessons rather than quantity lessons. I'm excited for those! 

We have a less active member that we're working with, Angie, who is just doing awesome. She has been coming to church a lot recently, and our lessons with her are always so great! She finally started to live the Word of Wisdom, and it was because we really tried to help her. It took about 3 lessons in a row, but it was awesome because we really taught to her needs in those three lessons. And because of it, she not only started to live the word of wisdom, she also trusts us more, and has been more willing to live other commandments! She came to our ward Christmas Party and it was so cool to have her there! I love working with her. The Welkers are also still doing super good! Jasmine (Ashley's sister) read from the Book of Mormon for the first time!!! She was so excited to tell us. We haven't set her baptismal date yet, but it will be soon. Slowly but surely it's all coming together with them. 

I can't really remember anything else that happened this week. I've been thinking a lot about the Christmas story recently, and just how it's such a blessing to have a Second record of Jesus' birth! In the Book of Mormon Samuel the Lamanite prophesies of the birth of Christ, and in 3 Nephi, the prophesy comes to pass. "And it had come to pass, yea all things, every whit, according tot he prophets. And it came to pass also that a new star did appear, according to the word."  (3Nephi 1:20-21) With this #lighttheworld Initiative, we can really spread the Light of Christ to all those around us! I love helping people follow Jesus Christ, because He truly is the Light of the World! 

I forgot to pick a ponderizing scripture before we emailed... I'll do one for next week though! 

I love you so much Mom! I'm very thankful for the love and support that I receive from you every day. It's such a blessing. I love our family so much! 

Love you Mom! Have a great week! 

Elder Collier

Light The World!

Hey Mom!!

December is already here and it's crazy! We found a lot of Christmas decorations in our closet, so we put those up in our apartment! We also made a Christmas Countdown. Christmas time is the best time to be a missionary! You can just say Merry Christmas to random people and it's a great way to talk to them haha! And no cannot believe Jordan is coming home already... That's crazy! It'll be so good to see him again. 

This week was a crazy week. It was filled with ups and downs. On Tuesday I got in a bike crash... haha! I got distracted and just road straight into a piece of cement that was sticking out! I flew over my handlebars, but I'm okay! I just ripped my pants through the fabric and got a little bruised. My bike kinda fell apart, but I took it to a bike shop and should be getting it back later this week. I got lucky and I am borrowing another missionary's bike for now! But later that day we had a great active member lesson with our Elders Quorum President (who's from Vancouver by the way! His last name is Sahim) and his wife. So that's just an example of our up down week. 

Because I ripped my pants, I was wondering if you could send me some new pants for Christmas? I was thinking maybe a khaki colored pair, and then possibly a blue pair too. My address won't change before Christmas! Transfer calls are on Christmas Eve, but transfers aren't until the next Wednesday! 

We decided to stop keeping track of a few of our Key Indicators! We now are no longer tracking Progressing Investigators, Other Lessons, and Referrals received and contacted. We are hoping by doing so that we will really focus more on getting members out to our lessons. We are going more for quality not quantity of lessons. I like the change, it'll be really good for our mission. 

Elder Hargraves and I have also decided to stop working so much in the ghetto parts of our area. It'll be safer for sure... but also we just haven't seen anything come from it. We teach a lot, but we never see them again, or they just don't commit. So we are going to work more in the better kept parts! All our members live over on that side too, so it'll be easier for active member lessons! Member missionary work is so important.

I don't know if you've seen the Light the World video yet but you should definitely check it out! it's on Mormon.org. It's going to be great this Christmas season to Light the World with acts of service, and by doing it we become more like Jesus Christ! Christmas is such a great time. 

What time will work for you to call on Christmas? I am not sure when our church service is, I just know we are only having Sacrament Meeting. 

I decided to ponderize John 16:33 this week. "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." Especially after President Eyring's talk last night about peace, Peace comes because of our Savior Jesus Christ. Through Him, we truly can find peace in this life. I believe He lives today. I love being able to testify of Him every single day! 

Thank you so much Mom! I really appreciate all the help you have given me, and continue to give me. I promise to keep using my name for good! I still hope to one day get to Four Oaks, NC! I hope you get feeling better too. 

Have a great week Mom!  I love you so much. 

Elder Collier 

Thanksgiving!

Hey Mom!!

This week was super good! Not very eventful, at least nothing really coming to mind right now, but I just know that it was good! 

I'm really sad to hear about Grandpa. I sent him an email. I love him so much, he's such a great man! Please tell him and Grandma that I love them both so much! The plan of Salvation is so real. Teaching it as a missionary really confirms to you that because of Jesus Christ, we will ALL live again. And we can be with our families forever because of the restoration! I promise to do all I can to move forward and to help others know about this so they don't have to mourn over similar situations. 

Thanksgiving was fun! We went to a member's home, and it was pretty fun! He just kinda wants us to come over and hang out, so we had to talk with him and tell him that we can't do that. We are hoping to continue to go over to help bring the spirit into their home, but we can't go over every week if they aren't going to make any progress, so we limited it to every other week. We'll see how that goes! We didn't do any contacting or tracting on Thanksgiving, but we did bike to a lot of the member's houses and dropped of thank you notes! I thought it was a pretty fun day! We talked to some people on the street. I was glad that it was a full proselyting day. IT's so boring to not proselyte! 

Elder Hargraves is doing great. He's working through some trials, but it's really bringing us closer as a companionship. We've had some good talks and I just love being his companion. He's so willing to go outside and work! 

I went on an exchange with an Elder that's going home soon! He goes home before the transfer is over because the transfer ends after Christmas, and he started his mission before Christmas in 2014, so they let him choose whether or not to spend another Christmas in the mission! But it was his last exchange so that was pretty cool. I'm not looking forward to that time to go home. Don't take this the wrong way Mom, As much as I love you, I want to stay out here haha! 

I recently read through Preach my Gospel and highlighted all the times it said help or helping or assist or something like that. It was super cool! I counted 421 times throughout the manual, but there could be more. It's just super cool to see how much of our purpose is helping people to receive the restored gospel. It's all about helping! 

My ponderizing scripture this week is in Helaman 5:30 "And it came to pass when they heard this voice, and beheld that it was not a voice of thunder, neither was it a voice of a great tumultuous noise, but behold, it was a still voice of perfect mildness, as if it had been a whisper, and it did pierce even to the very soul--" WHen I read this this morning, it really stood out to me. when God answers our prayers, it isn't this big sign that let's us know He's there, at least not all the time. Most of the time, it'll be something we have to work toward to notice. We have to be looking for it. But I do know that He answers our prayers. 

Anyway I love you mom!! You are the best. I honestly don't know how you do everything, teaching, work, being sick, taking care of grandpa, and being the best mom ever. You can just do it all! I really appreciate all that you do. I love you so much. Have a great week! 

Love you

Elder Collier