He lives!
This week has been so incredibly wonderful. I am very blessed to be serving in Lebanon, in the Hershey district, in the Harrisburg zone. I love my people. I love the work. I loved Christmas.
We had the opportunity this past week to go caroling in several different locations. It was such a blessing.
Monday we drove down to Harrisburg and had pday as a zone. It was so fun! We played sports and stuff and some elders even taught us how to play poker... yes. #missionlife
I'm not good at all.
When pday was over we went to the Ronald McDonald home and caroled with some of the other missionaries in the zone. It started out as a district thing but then others decided to join it. It was an unforgettable evening for me. There were these two angel little girls there. One was dealing with lukemia for the second time and the other had a super rare form of cancer that had just been diagnosed super recently. It was so precious to me to see their faces light up as we sung. We asked them if they had any requests and Ariel walks up to me and whispers in my ear, "Can you guys sing do you want to build a snowman?"
And I was just like...
Yes. My whole college career has prepared me for this.
So I lead the zone in singing that. It was awful. We were laughing so hard but it made the little girls laugh. They asked us to sing Let it Go next. That one went a little bit better... but not much. By the end, they just asked us to stop singing. 
When we finished singing, I just walked over to Kira's parents (the little girl who has lukemia) to tell them how strong they are and how mindful the Lord is of them. I just wanted to let them know that someone loved and admired them. They reminded me so much of Steve and Steph and Rex... So I walked over to talk to them and the whole zone ended up following. So we stayed for an extra 45 minutes, just talking to the girls and their families. Elder George did card tricks and sweet Sister Ludwig gave Kira her heart necklace. It was such a special night.
The next day was wonderful as well. We had a zone training on being exactly obedient. That's our goal as a zone, working towards fixing the things we're struggling with so that we can be exactly obedient. We have one of the smaller zones in the mission, but our numbers are just as big as the others because we have so many incredible missionaries who are constantly striving to be obedient and do the Lord's work His way. I am so blessed to serve around these people! We are going to receive so many miracles as we strive to follow the Lord more exactly! It's so exciting!
After the training, we went caroling again. It was amazing to see people's eyes light up and how grateful we were. There was one lady who was especially touched by our singing. She cried and told us, "You made my year!" It was so sweet.
Something AWESOME that happened was during dinner, we were playing basketball (and by we I mean almost all of the elders in the zone and I were playing because none of the other sisters wanted to play...) and we were doing a half court shot and I was like, "I'm never going to even get close to making this" But I took my first shot and totally drained it and got the elder in front of me out...
and the crowd went wild!
It was my susperstar moment of the week.
Christmas eve was awesome. We had two dinners. At the first one, some kind soul gave me a "My other ride is a Tardis" magnet for our car. Then we had a puertorican Christmas and sang spanish christmas songs and played the tambourine and maracas. It was so fun. Then, Hermana Landa and I set our mattresses under the Christmas tree and had a sleepover.
Then it was Christmas! Our mission president's gift to us was letting us sleep in for Christmas so we got a whole extra hour of sleep! It was great. The hard thing was that we were only supposed to skype our families that day for 30-60 minutes and then those with divorced parents (like me) could skype both families for 30-60 minutes.
Well, I realized that I was going to be the only missionary that was skyping for two hours, and I knew how the other missionaries felt... it wasn't really fair. So I came up with this plan that to be obedient and help them be obedient, I was just going to skype 30 minutes with both of my families. But I was still pretty sad about that and so I prayed that somehow something would work out.
We got to the house of the member that we'd be skyping from and got everything set up. It was looking bleak. I knew I'd have to have quick conversations. I started talking with my mom, and almost RIGHT AFTER I told my mom that I only had 30 minutes, elder George came in and said that President had called and we just needed to be reasonable with our time!
It was such a blessing!
I was feeling a little bit homesick after the calls but it was so wonderful to be able to speak with my family.
Getting back to missionary work was what helped me to be able to stop feeling so homesick.
Joe is doing well. He knows the Book of Mormon is true!
Our investigator Yolanda knows that priesthood is necessary in ordinances and wants to be baptized. Her grandson is also turning 8 this week! So maybe we can teach him.
We visited Sister Mellow and her caretaker Lorraine. I dressed up like Rudolph and Hermana Landa was Santa. We caroled for them and made them laugh.
We also brought a slough of pictures of Christmas lights to Sister Bord, since she said the #1 thing she misses about not being able to leave the house is seeing all the Christmas lights. She loved it! She was so happy.
We have some awesome potential investigators that we will be seeing this week! There are so many miracles happening in our area.
The only setback is that we had a bedbug scare yesterday! (Thus the title of this email). So we're on quarantine to see what happens... We'll be doing a lot of cleaning!! Prayers that the bedbugs will leave would be appreciated!
I feel like I have so much to say this week, but I'm out of time! I love you guys so much! I have been working on finalizing my new years resolutions. Someone gave an excellent talk in church yesterday about picking 1 or 2 resolutions instead of a bunch, so I've been narrowing my goals down. I'm excited about the New year! I hope you're all working on your goals as well!!
Thank you for all your prayers and support.
Happy New Year this Wednesday!
And happy 6 months to me on Friday!
#12moremonths
Love,
Hermana Bills 
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