A Whole New Year

Our fruit dip feast New Years eve! Cool whip, yogurt and fruit... sooo good! Sister Olsen's idea

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! WOW 2016 went by fast! I spent most of it out here now that I think about it... woah! I sure hope y'all had a great vacation and fun with family and friends! We sure did! On New Year's Eve day we baked cookies with Sister C. (member) and delivered them to people! Then that evening we hung out with the M’s (member fam) , ate good food, and played this crazy hard game called Chronology. The other team picks a card, reads the event or item and we have to guess what year it was in... I am so not good at dates... but it was fun still! Then we set our alarm for 11:55 that evening. It went off and we laid there till we heard the fireworks and guns go off, said "happy new year" to each other and went back to sleep. It was great :)

So yeah, transfers happened! It was sure sad to see Sister Merrill go, but Kempsville will sure love her! Can't wait to hear what she's up to! Sister Olsen is here now, she's great! Super fun, and loves to talk in accents. It is hard to go to a new area, so we are just taking it slow trying to introduce her to everything. She's already got it pretty good though :)

We finally caught up with someone we have been wanting to talk to for a long time! She is not a member of the church, and has lots of member friends and coordination with the church! So we asked her what she knew about the church and she said..."Something about Smith, and some ancient record of scripture... that's it." WOAH! For having so many friends she sure didn't know too much. So we talked to her a bit about it! We are gonna bring her a Book of Mormon soon! She is skeptical, but willing to listen. That's better than not interested and/or pretending to be interested. Sadly that happens a lot.

Our ward is just so great! We have an investigator that is struggling right now. Her mother is dying of cancer, and hospice had just stepped in so it should be soon now. She has to be with her mom 24/7 and so she is having her children just go buy fast food. But it isn't enough. So the relief society kicked in and has been providing meals for her! Wow it is awesome! She is so appreciative and hopefully this will help her come to love the church more! She kept saying that she believes we were put in her life for a reason. She is so sweet :)

New Years Eve day we had church, talked about hope and resolutions, how appropriate! Then we headed off to L's (member) for a great dinner! We had candied yams, this beef, onion, green bean mush, curly fries, and black eyes peas. Kinda crazy! But about the black eyes peas: It is traditional in the south to have these New Years Day because it means more money in this new year. They look like those olden time purses, so that is why they represent money! Some people also had collard greens to represent green money. So those are some cool southern traditions that we had!

Why do we eat black-eyed peas and greens on Jan 1st?

GUESS WHO IS COMING ON SATURDAY? ... Elder Quentin L. Cook of the quorum of the 12 apostles?!?!?!?! He will be accompanied by his wife, and Elder Clay and his wife of the 70. So stay tuned for that!! It should be awesome  :)

Other than that we are just getting back into the swing of things from the holidays! We are hitting the streets, spreading the good word! I sure love being a missionary, spreading the love of Christ wherever we go!

Thought for the week: "Exaltation is our goal. Discipleship is our journey." -President Uchtdorf. I related this to New Year’s goals. We usually have these big goals right? Lose 30 pounds. Be more Christlike. Figure out what I want to do with my life. But here as President Uchtdorf said, we have our goal, but we must first pursue a journey. Some journeys for those big goals are go to the gym 5 times a week. Read the scriptures daily. Attend the temple and seek personal revelation. When we break things down, it sure makes our goals a lot easier, and we have a greater chance of accomplishing them! So if you have made a New Years resolution/goal, break it down, and focus on the journey, not the destination.

I sure hope y'all have a blessed week, good luck getting back into the swing of life!
LOVE YA!!!
Sista Poulsen

Bonus from the Question Email:
Q: Have you seen anything from the snow storms we sent your way?
A: There was just the tiniest bit of snow... 5 min of just a few flakes. So that was exciting! Now it is just raining... bleck!

Saying goodbye to Sister Merril