The one where I have one Christmas left

Hi everyone! This week has been filled with so many emotions with the 2nd anniversary of my sister Maddie's passing, her 25th birthday, Christmas, and missing family.  As I shared in my last email, without trusting God, I would have a tough time getting through some of these rough potholes.

Super grateful for my fam and I know there are always there for me. Family is so important and I'm so glad I have the best one hehe, yep said it again!

 

There is also one other thing that got me going through each day. The mindset of one day at a time. This mindset is so important and I can't express that enough. Until this point in my mission, I have been looking a week or two out, planning and scheduling over and over, and thinking about all we had each week and it was giving me very little motivation to get up in the morning. But once I got over worrying about what's gonna happen tomorrow or the next day I had to remind myself that I need to get one day at a time.

As I've been able to do that I've seen so much more motivation for personal study, daily workout, crushing it at teaching lessons, and just getting as much as I can out of one day.

 

This week we didn't do much because a lot of the families were out of town for Christmas. But one of the more entertaining things we did was move “Papa Jim” Ralph's bull calf out of their living room, yep, and put it into a chicken coop. That was definitely a fun day you could say lol

 

On Thursday, we did exchanges in Alturas, California (Alturas is 5.5 hours from Eugene and it is the southern border of the mission). Elder Packer is a super chill dude definitely look up to the guy!  First, we had the 2-hour drive down to Alturas from Kalamath. We got to the church down there and contacted a whole bunch of people to plan our day! This sweet family was all sick with colds/flu, so we set up their hay nets for their horses. They had 2 very big horses haha. We then headed over the mountains to Cedarville, CA, a super small town, with a population of about 700. Our lesson was with a super awesome family, we shared a Christmas message and enjoyed being together. 

 

When we got back in the car to leave, Elder Packer goes "hey wanna go to Nevada it's only a 15-minute drive to the Nevada border?" I'm like yeah I'm down!! So we went to the Nevada border, took pictures, and didn’t leave mish boundaries. Haha.  Then to close out the day we got pizza to-go from Antonio's Cucina Italiana. It’s probably some of the best pizza I've ever had, top 3 for sure. Then in the morning, we drove back up to Oregon and exchanged back at the district conference! 

 

Christmas Eve was spent with some visits and messaging people. We didn't have a member meal invite, bummer ikr and neither did some of the other Elders. So we went to Mike's Pizza, (yep more pizza) for Christmas Eve dinner and got some fire pizza. The employees at Mike’s know all the missionaries well. We had a great time chatting and being together up until it was time to head back to our apartment. 


Christmas morning, Sunday!  We went to the Yonna Valley branch! Super awesome sacrament meeting and speakers! After church, I called my fam and we opened presents together and had some good laughs over the phone! After calling the fam we went to a Christmas dinner at the Chris's. They have 2 children one 21, and the other is 10. Super sweet family and holy moly the food was so good! Sister Chris went to culinary school, so yeah it was sups awesome. Grateful for all our awesome church members opening their homes to us. 

 

My challenge for the fam and friends is to reach out to someone that you haven't talked to in a long time and give them a message of hope and share a scripture with that hope message! 

 

Love Elder Fillmore




#lovelikemaddie I miss you, Maddie!

Sister Ralph and her bull calf. She's happy it's finally out of the living room

Me and Elder Packer learning how to set up hay nets. 

At the Nevada State line with Elder Packer


Fire* pizza from Antonios Cucina Italiana in Alturas, CA
*Fire means anything that is amazing

Christmas Eve dinner with my homies, Mike's Pizza in Kalamath

Talking with the fam Christmas Day


Awesome gifts from home

Christmas Day dinner with the Chris Family

Sister Chris is a culinary chef and we were in heaven. 






















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