Merry Christmas everyone! I hope the holidays are filled with happiness for everyone! We sure have had a good time with all of the snow we've been getting. They canceled church on Sunday because of it. I'm not sure exactly how much snow fell. The original estimate was 12 inches, but then I heard that it changed to 22 inches. We'll just say that it was more than I've seen in a long time. Don't worry, though, we still went out and walked in it. We had a lot of fun and made a lot of new friends. Especially on Sunday when we went out and helped people dig their cars out. My forearms, back, and abs were pretty sore the next day. I'm glad I learned how to shovel at a young age. It was hard not to laugh at some of the other people who clearly couldn't run one very efficiently. That's okay, though.
There were a lot of people that we passed who were stuck in the snow because they don't know the art of pulling out of a parking lot when it's all deep like that. We tried to offer to help push them out, but no one wanted our help it seemed like. One man agreed to have us help until we started pushing and my scarf fell down, revealing my nametag and he realized that we are mormons. He couldn't get us away from his car fast enough. Oh well. I guess you can't force your help on everyone. they still have their agency.
The Christmas conference on Capitol Hill was pretty interesting. We went over time on the lunch by about two hours. There were a lot of senators and congressmen that had a lot to say... They were all members of the church that spoke to us and they told us about their missions and bore their testimonies. It was interesting to see that side of them. We got a visit from Santa and Mrs. Claus too. Then we got a very short tour of the capitol because we were two hours late for our scheduled time. There was so much history in there that I wanted to look at, but there just wasn't time. There was a room that had statues of people from each state and all of us, like the nerdy missionaries that we are, were taking pictures of the Brigham Young statue. I'm sure it was a big joke for everyone that was watching us go through. Anyway, after that was over we took a mission picture on the steps of the capitol with the dome behind us. It was taken by the official house photographer and it's going to turn out really good because the sun was reflecting off the side of the dome as it was going down. It was so beautiful! Hopefully I'll get a copy of it so I can send one home.
Well, I hope everyone's Christmas is going to be wonderful and full of joy. This really is a great time of year when we get to ponder about the life of Christ and all that He did for us. It gives us all a lot more hope for what lies in the future and strength to face the difficulties. Thank you all for your examples and support and just know that I love you all!Merry Christmas!
Hermana Heather Larsen