Mom, I love my mission!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This week was SOOO great!!!! Mom I love my mission!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

I just love being a missionary during the christmas season,

and I feel like my attitude towards the mission has changed and it's

just been great.

I'm so thankful for the incredible opportunities I've been given to

Me and my new alpaca friends

grow and learn and help others grow and learn!

The nativity was AWESOME:) There were 600-1,000 people there, and the

majority of them were non-members! We had a lot of Mennonites there

and I loved talking to them! The first night was super nice it was

probably 50 degrees but super humid and foggy! President and

Sister Johnson came all the way from Pittsburgh to see the nativity.

By the end of that first night we had it down. The second night it was sooo cold. It

was in the 30's that night and the humidity with that cold air went

straight through our cloths! It was so fun though! Sister Sears and I

hung out most of that night and after each presentation we would run

into the building and hand our pass a long cards to people! Everyone

would take them because they just saw us in the performance, so that

was awesome. This random guy came up to us freaking out and so excited

to see missionaries! He was like, …never go home form your mission,

I've been home for three days and I'm going crazy! So we gave him a

handful of pass along cards to hand out and we saw him giving them

out to everyone hahaha!!! 

It was so fun hanging our with the alpaca,goats, and sheep! 

We took some sweet selfies with the alpaca:)

The nativity really set the tone for this Christmas season for me. The

spirit was so strong every time we performed it! This experience

really put the Saviors birth into perspective for me. Thinking about

how a humble shepherd would feel as we walked into a stable with

nothing to offer, but our physical presence was truly eye opening.

That's really all that the Lord requires of us. He want's us to come

to him with humility and thanksgiving in our hearts. The spirit

testified to many of the reality of the Saviors birth those two

nights. This was an experience I will never forget!

Saturday was truly the highlight of my mission so far! We got to go to

the Washington D.C. temple with our recent converts who have been

preparing for this day for two years. I can't even begin to express in

words the joy I had for them and the incredible peace that was felt in

the temple that day! I know that as we make those sacred covenants

with our Heavenly Father and we keep them that we can find true and

everlasting joy here on earth and in the life to come. Before going to

the temple session, we went to the visiter center and is was amazing!

There was a room full of nativities from around the world and it was

incredible to see how different each of them were, and yet delivered

the same message that, A Savior was born so we can find joy, hope, and

peace!  There was a missionary room where they had the stories of all

the missionaries that were in the Preach My Gospel training videos,

The District! There was a wall that was completely covered with

missionary tags from Elders and Sisters serving around the world. I

thought about how each of those missionaries had to go through many

trials and experiences on their missions and how they were part of

moving this incredible work forward. They had a monitor that counted

The beautiful Washington DC temple

the missionaries that have served since 1830 and the numbers just kept

gradually going up. There were more than a million missionaries and I

felt so honored to be one of them!

The D.C. temple is so majestic and absolutely breath taking! The whole

time we were there I just had this giant smile on my face, and by the

end of the day my cheeks hurt from smiling so much! I just felt so at

home and at peace being there!

After the temple we went to the only Cafe Rio in the east coast! We

were all sooo hungry, having not eaten since that morning! It was sooo

good!!!!

I love you all and I hope yinz have a very Merry Christmas!!!

LOVE Sister Raquel Douglas

p.s. The whether here has been super weird and it is going to be 70

degrees on Christmas eve, can you believe that!