Biggest Miracle of My Mission, and it Happened on Christmas

Feliz navidad everyone!! I hope you all had a super merry Christmas! We did some super Christmassy things like stay up til midnight as a mission, play spikeball, eat lasagna, and attempt Christmas caroling (turns out that is not a thing at all in this country and everyone we sang to was just kinda like, ehhh what's happening right now)

On Christmas Eve we got to do some service! That was literally all I wanted to do for Christmas Eve since we didn't think anyone would really want to get taught on that day. We heart attacked a couple members' doors and one was the bishop whose wife just had a new baby five days before. They both looked exhausted. We asked if there was anything we could do, and the bishop was like, "wash dishes?" There was a mountain of dishes and we went to town. We finished all of them in about an hour and the bishop's wife cried. It felt really good to do something that actually made a difference to someone, cuz that is really what Christmas is about.

We got fed by members on Saturday and Sunday with minimal convincing from us. Hermana Lee and I made little Christmas presents for the other hermanas who live with us and they loved them. I was happy that we could give somebody a Christmas present because surprising your companion is kind of impossible.

CHRISTMAS MIRACLES

Our friend Victor is one of the most prepared people I've ever met. He reads his Book of Mormón every day and wants to get baptized. He works to take care of his sick mom, and his boss won't let him have Sundays off. But he had Christmas off! And he has New Year's off too! We're making progress, and we're gonna involve the entire ward until we find this man a new job and baptize him!

And LISSAURY. We have been teaching this girl named Lissaury. We finally got her on date last week. She is an actual true investigator of truth. She's been to tons of churches before, really looking for the one that's true, and has already made word of wisdom and chastity related changes in her life because she recognized a lack of God in her life. And she's only 17!! We put her on date last week, then she didn't come to church yesterday. I was crushed. Because I really thought she was different from all the flaky investigators we have.

Then we went to her house last night and she bore her testimony to us. She talked about how she truly KNOWS that she has found the truth. And she did go to church yesterday. She went to the Elders' ward that neighbors our area. She lives closer to that ward building, but she has a lot of member support from our ward, so we had already gotten permission from President to baptize her in our ward because of all her member friends. But because she knows this is the truth, she didn't even care that she won't get to go to church with her best friend. She just wants to go to the true church.

I have never met someone so prepared. So honestly, truly converted. She is the biggest miracle of my mission. She has strengthened my testimony so much.

Merry merry merry Christmas!! The Church is true and God is still a God of miracles, that wasn't just a thing back in the day. God loves His children so much---we literally can't even comprehend the love without end that He has for us.

Hermana Cazier

Pics

1. We did a zone Christmas exchange and Hermana Cook and I had each other. I love her so much!!

2. Made the classic Cazier caramel smores bars. Our new convert's mom let us use her oven cuz ours turned out to be broken.

3. Mirror selfie

4. Us being Santa for the other hermanas

5. I ate dominican Krave on Christmas morning

6. Lights in the park

7. One time there was a super loud, wall shaking concert literally directly outside our window that lasted til midnight. I slept through it cuz that's how exhausting missionary life is

Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas 2022

Guys! Merry Christmas. It's still Christmas Break and I'm getting all the good stuff on here and staying caught up and all that and it's basically a Christmas miracle. Thanks for all the prayers. :)

Christmas was great. You should know by now that we don't take a lot of pictures. We basically enjoy the day and take a few photos. So you can see the tidbits of the day.

Let's go back really fast to the day before. We can't forget the milk and cookies. Beau was super nice to make us cookies at the last minute. She even put peppermint extract in half of them to give them a Christmas twist. 

She also dyed her hair on Christmas Eve as well. I think it looks really hip on her. Analena helped her out with it. They basically go back and forth dying each other's hair. 

Okay, ready for Christmas morning? The stockings were placed on the couch with care. (We never hang ours.)

I was up early, getting stuff ready for breakfast, but the girls still serenaded our door to wake up Tyler. They sang a lovely rendition of Rudolph, the Red Nosed Snee! (It makes me so happy) Then it was downstairs to open stockings.

I really got a lot of random stuff for the stockings this year. Sometimes I wonder why this task is left up to me, but I really love it and no one complains...if they knows what's good for them.

Santa gifts were nice and small this year, but everyone seemed happy. Thanks Santa. ;)

We had a lot of fun gifts under the tree. Here is a sample of our treasures.

Ivory's favorite gift came to visit, wearing a tie she got him for Christmas. (All together now...aaaaahhhh.)

Crepes for breakfast too. Not sure why Beau likes to make faces with her food, but she does.

But the best gift of Christmas by far was getting to talk to June. We sure missed having her at home. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year all the way out to the Dominican Republic! And we hope you had a good one as well.

Hot and Possibly Unflattering, but Super Comfortable

Yep, I'm talking about Christmas pajamas! We always go for the cozy ones, but sometimes that means they are super soft and oh so warm. Too warm. But I get ahead of myself. 

Daisy has helped me the last few years in picking out jammies. She also helps me wrap them and we identify them by putting the first letter of your name on your gift. Then when it is time to open they are passed out until everyone finds theirs. Except that Pearl was struggling to find her letter. She got it eventually.

Let's open those bad boys!

I had this idea to do a reel where we are holding our jammies and then wearing them. I obviously have no idea how to do that, so Beau and Dad put it together for me. (I plan to figure this out next year. It's a goal.) The reel turned out so cute!

Then we took a couple pictures. Man, my butt looks huge in those pants. And you can see that I was too warm and I had rolled them up.

"What did you just say?"

Quick, everyone do something weird. Mission accomplished.

Maybe next year I'll get everyone shorts? Probably not...it's hard to beat a warm snuggly pair of pajama bottoms.

Related to the Best People

(December 22nd-24th, 2022)

Around the holidays, we always want to find a little time to spend with family. That gets tricky when some live farther away. (Sorry Dargans, hopefully we'll see you soon.) Idaho isn't too far to drive, so we try to make it up there. We were able to sneak away for a couple days to see family and some soon-to-be family!

Analena was able to come with us. And sadly, Ivory wasn't able to come. Ives had work that she couldn't cover. Analena didn't replace Ivory, since there is NO replacement for anyone in our family, but it was nice to have a pretty full car. I'm going to be sad where there are too many empty seats.

We drove up in the afternoon and had some time to chill with Granny V. We played some games and she cooked us a super tasty meal. She had Tyler use her insta-pot since she wasn't sure how to do rice. There was a weird burning smell, but the rice turned out okay. Turns out that the instructions for the insta-pot were still inside, under the pot. I've heard of cooking instructions, but I didn't think it meant to cook your instructions...

We planned to get together with the Ks the next evening, but they all came over early and it was great to hang out and meet Ellen. Ellen is Kaysen's fiance. They are getting married in February. Ellen is delightful and will fit right into the family. We played a new game called Stupid Deaths. It was pretty fun. Only Tyler and I escaped the Grim Reaper. Yikes.

The next day brought more adventures. Since both Analena and Beau spend time sketching models for the art school, they thought KJ would make a good model. There was much debate about how much clothing should be worn, but fear not, KJ was perfectly decent in running shorts. Beau left them out of her drawing though and Granny V was a little worried. I like what she said, "I understand it is art, but NOT when it's my grandson."

The rest of us chilled and there was much loving on Arzee. (Thanks Ivory for staying home and taking care of our quadruped.) We also got ready to go outside and it was definitely cold in Idaho. 

To thank KJ for sitting still for a few hour, and to reward ourselves as well, we all went to City Bagel. That place is just the best. I got hot chocolate this time around and it was phenomenal. 

Despite all the snow, we walked around and did a little shopping. KJ recommended a toy store that was super fun, and Granny V took us to Poppy & Pout. I love me some shopping!

Then we grabbed some grub on the way home, since we were going over to Kat's for dinner. So much snow guys! It is beautiful and cold.

We had such a fun time over with the Ks. Dinner was delicious. I love Kat's Santa tree. Kaysen and Ellen were super cute. I can't remember, but when Tyler and I were engaged, were we touching all the time? 

We played the Candy ball game which is always a huge party and we played the name game as well, which involved so many laughs. Kaysen is particularly good at the Charades part. :) It was so great to see the boys and Kat. 

Then the next morning, we had to head home since it was Christmas Eve, and we needed to open some jammies. Analena did Pearl's hair before we left. She showed off her five strand braid skills the day before, but I had no idea she could do it Dutch as well. Blows my mind!

Funny end to the trip. We have this chicken that is frequently outside our house, near the apple tree. I would say that she is there 85% of the time. It is so normal to see her standing there and she isn't skiddish unless you try to catch her. Well, while we were gone, Ivory left the garage door up and she went inside. Then Ivory had to leave in a hurry, so she closed the garage door and planned to get the chicken out later. Well, she forgot, so when we came home, the chicken was not under the tree. It was in the garage!

We didn't get to see the Js until after Christmas, but I thought I would add them in here as well. They came over for dinner and games and we had a wonderful evening. I can tell because I forgot to take any pictures. But Tyler did take some video as we played the Name Game, so I stole a couple. Jack and Rozz are so big. Rozzlyn will be 18 in just a couple days! And Henlee and Grand are growing like weeds too. It was so cute to see Henlee jump up and imitate Rozz while she acted out clues. They are such a great family and it was so nice to see them. I have a New Year's goal to see them more often.

I hope this holiday season has blessed you with being able to see family, or not. Sometimes that is a blessing too. ;)