Hey everyone!

This has been a great last week and it has flown by! And you can tell that Slovenia is getting ready for Christmas!! It is so cool here in Celje; they have all sort of decorations all over the city and especially in Center. They have gigantic pine trees that they cut down from the mountains and brought them down and then put them around the city and put lights around them. Then all over the center buildings they have lights going up and down and across, which makes the city gorgeous! Then also on the streets they have all sorts of little huts outside on the streets selling all sorts of stuff like: meat, cheese, chocolate, funny furry hats, pastry's and pretty much everything else that you would imagine that would be in a fairy tale land, haha! ;) Slovenes really know how to celebrate christmas!! Strangely though we are still waiting for it to snow. It's only about 0 C here, and about every morning we have a ton of fog, but still no snow, so we will see what will happen.

Also the branch is getting ready for christmas too! For the past few weeks we have gotten together a branch choir and we will be having a Christmas concert this friday! One of the in-actives we have been working with (Konstancija) for last few months is actually incharge of the choir and she has been doing a great job! Also she has came for the last 4 sacrament meetings and now I think is fully active!! :D The other members then talked to her yesterday and asked that maybe after the concert we could continue doing choir practice every sunday before sacrament. It's an idea that is going around and I think that it would be so great for the branch. One problem that we have here is having members being unified and friends with each other, but I have seen miracles with this and it is really helping them to strengthen their relationships and best of all it helped Konstancija to come back and she now feels needed and this is the happiest I have seen here since I got here. :)

I also kind of left you all on a cliff hanger last week, so I am sorry for that, but now I will tell you about my experience that I had last week. It was last Sunday and we had just gotten home from church and had lunch. Elder Benson was doing calls and getting the weekly numbers for our district and while he was doing that I had nothing to do. I was sitting on at our table and as I was sitting I felt that I should pull out Preach My Gospel and look at chapter 4: recognizing the spirit. As I was reading some of the chapter I felt all of the sudden that I should write down some scriptures about feelings of spirit on a piece of paper. It seemed to me simple enough, so I thought "why not". So I searched and got a good list going, and once I was done I decided: "ya know what: I'm going to save this", thinking that maybe it would come in use later on in the week. I then put it in my Slovene Book of Mormon and then went on about the rest of my business.

We then had a lesson later on that evening with a less active that we have been teaching for a while. At first we wanted to talk to him about his personal progression, and how he could continue. We then kept talking with him and listed some things that help us to progress such as: reading, praying, church, and then the last one we got to was revelation. We asked him how do we receive revelation and he then told us he didn't know. He was baptized very quickly and doesn't know all of the gospel very well, so we told him that the Holy Ghost gives us revelation. I then felt that I should ask him: "Do you know how the Holy Ghost feels". He told me: "Honestly, no". Right then when I heard that I slapped my knee and said: "Well I have something for YOU!" I reached into my back pack and grabbed my Book of Mormon and gave him the piece of paper. Elder Benson who was right next to me was completely in shock, because he didn't know what this was. I then told them what had happened this morning and that we as missionaries can receive revelation for those that we teach, and that we receive it from the Holy Ghost. It was such a cool/amazing experience, and I want to/can testify that we can receive revelation from the Holy Ghost to bless our lives and those around us, any time that we need it. The only thing that we need to be doing is one: asking for it, and two: looking for it. God is there for us and he is always ready to bless us with the things that we need and I know that he will be there for all of you. :)

I am so grateful for all of you and all of the impact you have all had on my life, and I pray that you will all keep striving to choose the right and helping others along the way! That's all for now, but I will talk to you all next week and tell you more about Christmas in Slovenia AND if you are all REALLY nice: maybe Santa will sneak a few pictures on the computer for all of you! ;)

Love you all!

- Starešina Lyman

p.s. Last week I finished my second transfer here in the mission and I will be finally done with my training this next week! It is kind of crazy to think about how fast time has gone! For transfers absolutely nothing happened in Slovenia and it all stayed the same! I am still here in Celje, with Elder Benson and that is how it will be for the next 7 weeks. :)