Our house is full of Christmas carols and community activities, baking Christmas cookies, decorating the house inside and outside as we are preparing Our Hearts and the Decorations in Our House.

This week we changed our volunteer work so that each of us now is with a different person. It is really a learning experience and a very good one for all of us; we are taking care of the children, which is different from what we have been doing so far in the Novitiate. All of us are busy.

We had a very nice dinner at the Guest House, with all of the Sion Sisters in Jerusalem, to celebrate the birthday of Sr. Marge; it was good to see all of the sisters again. Sr. Juliana and Sr. Ivone went to “Rami Levy” to buy food for us and supplies for our Christmas biscuits. We will help Sr. Juliana, who is our Chef, to make them. They bought many things and someone commented, “That’s lot!” They responded, “We have a big family!”

We had input from Sr. Jilvaneide about “Lectio Divina” from 3:30 to 6:00 P.M. We found it helpful; “Lectio Divina” is a way of reading Scripture prayerfully, and so invites us to go deeper. We also had a visit with a group of Sisters of Sion and Friends of Sion who came to visit us because they wanted to know what we are doing in the novitiate. It was a lovely group and they encouraged us to keep our smile, to be happy, and to prayer for them. Today is Friday. At 9:00 A.M. we prepared the first batch of our biscuits which were delicious, thanks to our Chef, Sr. Juliana! On Saturday we had an enjoyable day with a visit from “Santa Claus” (also known in some cultures as Saint Nicolas); Sr. Juliana told us that in her country, 6 December, the feast of St. Nicolas, is a special day, and that’s why she prepared a surprise for us. Do you know what it was? Each one has a photo on her own cup in her favorite color.

They are beautiful!
Thanks Sr. Juliana.

written by Victoria