This email was sent by Sister Welker on December 19th.  We received it on December 18th.

Week 19: Mount Christmas Dinner, Service Saturday, and Christmas Nativity

What a week!! I'll be sad when I'll no longer be in a trio, but I know that the Lord has great things in store for both Sister Lewis and Sister Reynolds.

So many fun adventures happened this last week.  If I tried to write them all down, I'd have a novel ready to be published hahah.  One of my favorite highlights definitely had to be the Mount Christmas Dinner.  It was a great turn out.  They had amazing decorations set up, and live band, and super yummy food, and one of our investigators and his whole family showed up!! :D

I'm sad to announce that our family of 5 that we just baptized is moving.  Half of them are going to Hamilton, NZ and the other half is going to Auzi (Austrailia).  So we had to say good-bye to them this week.  Three of the family members are sticking around and we'll still visit them, but everyone else decided to move.  Sad Day.  :(

For those of you who don't know me well, I'm not much of an actress, but I had been asked by the Primary teacher if I could play the angel for the Primary Nativity Pageant.  We had a great cast!! The Elders were the wise men, and I was an angel.  Luckily, we didn't have to do too much acting other than walking in when it was our time to be on stage and sitting down when we were done.  However, I didn't realize that we didn't need to speak, and I echoed the words of the narrator.   (For years in our home ward, Sister Heidi Christensen put on a nativity pageant with all the primary children.  She fed the kids their lines, when it was their time to speak!  So that is all that Sister Welker would have known.)  When the narrator said "For Behold", I echoed "for behold", "I bring you great tidings", "I bring you great tidings".  It wasn't till all the primary kids started laughing at me, that I realized that I wasn't suppose to recite my lines hahaha.

Saturday was another service packed day.  We started the day with helping to fill the baptismal font for a primary girl that was getting baptized.  Then we helped clean a house for a less active in Te Puke, and afterwards we feed the homeless.  I just have to say that the Lord is really looking after his missionaries.  While we were helping to clean the house at the less active member's house, there was an accident.  Sister Lewis was helping to vacuum the spider webs from off the ceiling by climbing up a ladder with the vacuum strapped to her back.  I was underneath the ladder trying to stabilize it for Sister Lewis so she wouldn't fall (bad idea).  While she was on the ladder it slipped from underneath her and she fell while holding on to the ladder, and it fell directly on top of me.  In that moment everything seamed to slow down, as if life was being played in slow motion.  I could see the ladder falling towards me and somehow I was able to turn around and land on the floor crawled up in a ball with my back towards the ceiling.  If I would have fallen strait back or on my side when the ladder landed on top of me I could have cracked my ribs, broken a bone, gotten a concussion--so many things could have gone wrong.  Once they got the ladder off of me, I was able to stand up and move on like nothing happened.  I got away with only a couple of bruises and a sore back.  The Lord was really looking after me and all his missionaries.  I'm so happy that both Sister Lewis and I are alright. 

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas, and that you take some time to remember the Savior.  Spend time with those you love and let them know how much they really mean to you.  Thanks for all you do for me and thanks for all the love and prayers.  You all mean so much to me!!

Have a great week and Have a Merry Christmas!!

Sister Mandy Welker