Dearest Family and Friends,

First of all GOD JUL! (Merry Christmas!), I really hope this year you each get to spend time thinking of the true meaning of Christmas and the gifts that really matter. I have come to know that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world and that He was born into this world in poverty and humility but that He will return in glory. Now is the time to prepare ourselves and the world for His second coming. What a marvelous time this is now to think of our Redeemer and to share His gospel with our friends and family. I know that reaching out to others in love will bring peace and joy and that more people than you can imagine will be ready to hear the Good News this week than any other week. I wish you all a wonderful Merry Christmas and I want to add my whitness to all the other ones that have come before me and will come after me, that I know, I know Christ is the Savior of the world and that He knows and cares for each of us personally. Come unto Christ, and you will find peace and rest.

Second of all, I want to tell about the many amazing miracles that have happened in this past week. Most of our time in the evening has been dedicated to carolling with the Elders, we carol from 5pm or 6pm to the rest of the night because the members just keep giving us referrals to sing to and danes always, ALWAYS invite you to give you some chocolate or candy or cookies and to talk for 10 or 15 minutes. I have seriously eaten so much chocolate this past week from caroling, it was ridiculous. But we have had some really good conversations with poeple about the church and about what we do as missionaries. So even though it's a different type of missionary work, it is still missionary work. And the members have gotten way involved. One member gave us 8 referrals to go sing to! and another member gave us four and after contacting one of her referrals (Hanne), Hanne referred us to her friend, Dorthe, and so we went and sang to Dorthe and Dorthe referred us to her friend and her daughter. So we have a little chain going.

Plus, caroling always results in many adventures. Like take yesterday for example. Yesterday started out cold but it wasn't raining yet so we thought "perfect, this will be great for caroling". and we had planned on getting a lot of members sung to and most of our referrals because we finally had bikes (both us and the elders). So our plan was to start caroling at 3pm and just do that until we finally finally were finished with this giant caroling project. Well, the elders showed up at 3 but sister tew and I were still trying to fix the many problems with her bike. So they show up and we're just out in our skirts and tights on the ground with bike grease all over our coats and then it starts to rain and rain and rain. So the elders were kind enough to hold their umbrellas over us as we struggled with the bike.but then they realized that they were making two sisters fix a bike so they made a switch spots so they could be gentlemen. It actually took an hour to fix her bike and by this point we're all pretty cold and wet. But we're all on bikes so we were going pretty fast, despite the raging wind and rain. We sang to one person and as we were all pedalling away, sister tew's bike broke...so we decided to show up to a member family who lived close by and see if we could plead a bike off of them for a few hours. We showed up and we all must have looked more pitiful than we thought because the members had this horrified look on their faces and they ushered us in quickly. So we stood there sopping wet in their entry way as the mom lectures us for being out in this weather. Then they refused to let us leave until we had all changed clothes into dry socks, boots, sweaters and rain jackets. They let us borrow a bike but it was too tall for Sister Tew so I rode it.

And once again we were off to carol and things were going really well and we were singing to a lot of people and having lots of success. Everyone we sang to was really grateful and told us to go sing to their neighbors and some of the members we went and sang to, decided to come join us as we sang to their neighbors and many people said "now I feel like Christmas is here" after we had sung to them. We were in an area with lots of people to sing to so we all locked up our bikes at one spot and walked from apartment building to apartment building to sing. Then we came back to the bikes and I reached in my pocket for the key to the member's bike and it wasn't there. frantically, I searched my pockets and my bag, dumping everything out and looking through it all. We used the flashlights on our phones and searched the area right by the bikes but we couldn't find it. So the Elders and us decided to split up and go looking for it. Sister Tew and I decided to pray and in the prayer I asked that the Lord help us find the key or help lead us to what He wanted us to be doing right then. So we searched for 20 more minutes...no luck. The Elders came back. Nothing. We decided that we could check this apartment building we had been in earlier to sing in but we all thought it was pretty unlikely that the key would be there. But we went back and Elder Christensen sees it before we walk in the entry way and says "hey I found it!". But right as he said it, a Danish woman, who was going into the building, looks at us all taken aback. We explain to her we were looking for the key and then Elder Christensen explains to her that we are out caroling and asks her if she would like to her a song. She agrees and we sing Jingle Bells. She tells us that it was so nice to hear us sing and that she got tears in her eyes from listening. I ask her if she would like to hear another one. She says yes. and we sing silent night. As soon as we started singing, we could feel the Spirit very strong and this time she cried openly and thanked us so much for our song. After we said goodbye to her, we offered a prayer of gratitude to be able to find that daughter of God who needed to feel His love that night.  The true miracle is that the key I had lost was in a place in that entry way where I definitely had not been standing. We all marvelled about how on earth the key could have ended up where it did, but the Lord works in mysterious ways and sometimes it takes Him helpnig us find a lost key to lead us to who He wants us to meet.

Well, I love you all and I hope you have a wonderful Christmas!

Love Søster Briscoe