Hello!

So a lot of what happened this week was Sister Hart and I volunteering at the Salem stake Nativity Festival! For the past 16 years the Salem stake has joined with other churches in the community to put together a community event that features hundreds of Christmas nativities from around the world!  They run the event for three days, featuring live performances and even a children's play room where they can dress up and travel back in time to Bethlehem during the time of Christ's birth. The stake received permission from our mission president to have the missionaries come in and volunteer as greeters and story tellers! So on Thursday and Saturday, Sister Hart and I were able to dress up and come in and play and tell stories to the kids! It was so much fun!

On the Friday morning of the Nativity Festival, the stake set aside a special time slot for the senior citizens of the community. All the missionaries in the stake came and sang Christmas carols to the old people! At one point, there were only two women in the audience, so rather than singing to them from the risers, we all went down on the floor to stand around the women and sing to them. It was so awesome to see the gratitude and joy in the eyes of these women, and I felt an incredible amount of the love that God had for these two precious daughters of His. Service is awesome! It really does open hearts and heal the broken ones.

I hope you all remember who Daniel is! He's our miracle less active member who has recently returned to activity and is ON FIRE!!!!!  He told us the other day that he wants to go on a mission! HE IS DOING SO GOOD! He's making all of the necessary preparations to go! It is truly a blessing and a privilege to witness him make so much progress in such a short amount of time.

Oh! Here's a funny moment from this past week! Sister Hart and I were tracting, passing out invitations to the Nativity Festival. We knocked on a door and asked if the person had ever heard of the event and the man replied by saying, "I've heard of Jesus!" It made not sound that funny, but Sister Hart and I are still laughing about it.

That's about it for this past week. Being a missionary is the best!

Love,
Sister Hanna