Und ein glückliches neues Jahr!! 🥳🎆✨️

Heyyo!!

I hope everyone's Christmas was magical and that you were able to spend time with loved ones and think about Christ during this season. 

This Christmas was different for sure since my family is half a world away, but I was still able to feel at home here. The members in our ward LOVE the sisters and were fighting over who was inviting us over for Christmas. We ended up spending it with 5 or 6 families over the course of the Christmas celebrations.

I can't say I had a favorite day over all but Christmas Eve definitely reminded me most of home. We spent it with the Wiehe family and it was so chaotic and so fun. They have four little kids, including a baby. The kids were running around the whole time and jumping all over us, the baby chewed on my finger for most of dinner, we played lots of games and the kids cried when they lost and the adults didn't care, they got us ornaments. It just felt so normal and I loved it! After we got home and into bed, we realized we forgot to put cookies out for Santa! But we got up (even though it was past our bedtime 😬) and set a plate out with a little note, so everything was OK haha!

The other days of Christmas were also a blast with lots of good food and fun games. We also got to watch a movie as part of the Christmas present from our mission president. We watched Suits on the Loose and had a movie night on the couch with popcorn and candy. A weird but totally awesome Christmas!

Other exciting things from this past week include going to the Dortmund Christmas market, getting a monthly ticket for the buses/train (the sister before me lost it and I had to spend over $200 on tickets this past month), having a good cry sesh, discussing Jesus' marital status and the role women played during his earthly ministry with my comp, and calling my family for Christmas and birthdays. 

Goal setting is something I struggle with and when my companion asks me what my goal for the day is I typically respond with "Don't suck," which I'd say is a good goal to have but it's not a very S.M.A.R.T. one. So recently I've been thinking a lot about who I want to be/what I want to accomplish by different points in my life and breaking that down into smaller and more achievable pieces. With the new year just around the corner, I think it's a perfect time to think about who we are, who we want to become, and what goals we can get there.

For me, I want to become more Christlike, which is a pretty broad statement. But in Luke 2:52 it breaks it down into four categories when it says that Jesus "increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man." Setting specific goals that fit into these categories (intellectual, physical, social, and spiritual) are a great way to make personal progress and become more Christlike, step by step.

So yeah, I hope you all take some time to set some SMART goals and have a happy and safe new year!

❤️ Sister Downing

*Below I have a pdf of the Christmas card we made this year


Dortmund Christmas market

Sister Maughan with the biggest Christmas tree in the world (at least according to the sign they had haha)

Kinderpunsch in souvenir cups

We love biking in the rain on Christmas Eve

Service highlight of the week: teaching the Wiehe kids how to lose at Mario Kart 😂

Matching Christmas pajamas 🥤🎅

Stockings before church

Naptime with a super comfy pillow lol

Spent a half hour at the Bahnhof eating cookies, doing our Duolingo, and discussing Jesus' marital status 🤣

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