December 19, 2016

Week 43

Hey Mom!

Just letting you know, I decided to start a mass email to a bunch of people.  Of course, you, Dad, Alli are going to get it too. I'll still send you all personal emails, but the things I do throughout the week and the pictures will be there. I hope that's okay. If not, let me know and I'll go back to how we did it. Just thought I'd try it. During district meeting Baskan(president) came and visited us.  He told us about some updated rules because of some things that happened in Kazakhstan. Everhting is good here! We met with our Nigerian friend twice this week and he came to church. He's doing okay. We are trying to get him to understand why we ask him to do certain things (read scriptures, pray, etc). We have a TON of potential Turkish friends and one REALLY good one that WILL have a pool party next month. He's awesome! He's just like Yasli Nahle, but a Turk. Dang! It sounds like it's nice and cold. It's gotten in the mid 30s here and it snowed a ton while we were on an exchange in Levent! It was awesome. For Christmas we are having church then eating a breakfast for dinner all together as volunteers at someone's house, I think. For Skype, we are thinking of doing it Sunday morning before church.It'll be late Christmas Eve for you guys, about 9 a.m. here and it's 10 hours difference, right? I'm so excited! Well Mom, thank you so much for all of the encouraging words, they mean so much to me! I hope you have a great Christmas week. I loveeeeee youuuuu!

Group Email:

Romans 8:37-39

Selamunaleykum, Herkese! (Hello,Everyone!)

Yeah, I'm 10 months out, I've had TONS of things happen during my service, so it's a little late to start a mass email. But, I thought, "why not?!" First of all I want to say thank you  to ALL OF YOU. If it weren't for each and every one of you, I would not be where I am today. You have all impacted me more than I can express. So once again, thanks so much! I'm sure almost all of you know this, but in July some pretty crazy political stuff happened and that forced all of us volunteers here in Turkey to get shipped out to Germany. That was quite an experience; sooo differen from Turkey. We were there for exactly two months, It is a miracle that it was only that long. The day we came back was, no joke, the happiest day of my life! My companion (Yasli Nahle) and I opened an area in west Istanbul back in October. We love it out here. Settling in took a while. We got locket out of our apartment overnight once, our washing machine flooded our apartment, and there were some other incidents that would be better to talk about when I get back. ;) We have tons of friends we are sharing the good news with! This past week our entire church meeting house was completely full, first time I have seen that. It was especially awesome because last week was the least amount of people I had seen at church. This week it snowed for the first time this season! I was on an exchange with a volunteer from Argentina, and I've never seen someone so happy to see snow haha. It was hilarious. This Sunday I will get to Skype my family for Christmas. I'm so excited. Speaking of CHRISTmas, please don't forget the true meaning of why we give presents and serve others during this time of year. Here in Turkey they decorate all of  their malls, streets and things like they do in America, but it's to celebrate New Years. I realize now how much I took the true meaning of Christmas for granted. I just felt like sharing that with you all.  Once again, thank you all so much!  Merry Christmas!

Cok saygilar ve sevgiler! (Much respect and love!)