Buenos Dias!
Wow, this was quite the week... with Christmas and programs and calls home - it was pretty busy, to say the least. We started out last week by having a full mission conference for Christmas, which was pretty awesome. There was a big musical program and a general authority to give us an inspirational message. It was pretty crazy because the elder in our quartet that sings the high tenor was sick, and I ended up having to sing this insanely high part for our performance. It was in the song "Mary, did you know?" and I was so glad I had some voice that day. But we definitely represented Yuma well. The 4 of us sang 3 songs at the fireside and they all turned out really well. It was cool to see everyone there, including all of my MTC district that came out with me and everyone that used to serve here in Yuma. It definitely just felt like one huge family. That and it was cool to find out that my MTC companion is now training too! He's training in English and apparently is covering the whole New Mexico part of our mission. There was a sweet story about Sister Donaldson, who was in my district, and her companion in Tempe, who found an incredibly prepared Jewish lady. This lady had been really actively searching for the true church for 20 years and had been introduced to our Church. She had studied the Book of Mormon alongside the Bible, Gospel Principles, anything she could get her hands on. The sister missionaries felt prompted to go to her house at 8:30 Friday night. She invited them in and to make a long story short, she got baptized the next morning at 11:30. She was leaving for several months, so it needed to be done right away. A pretty sweet story!!
Christmas Eve, we got to have a huge breakfast with our branch president, and the highlight of our day was an unexpected lesson. We taught the mom of this younger kid we just started teaching and they were all super open. She and her 2 kids all accepted a baptismal date in January and got all excited when we promised them blessings. What was pretty sweet is when we mentioned baptism, the kid (Ramon) said he'd already been baptized. His mom immediately told him that if this was the Lord's true Church, they would all have to be baptized again - into this one. Concern resolved! I was way surprised and could definitely see the difference between them and people that just aren't ready to hear the Gospel. Then to finish up that night we had a massive Mexican dinner, with tomales, rolled tacos, carne asada, rice, beans, and some of the American stuff. Probably one of the best meals I've ever had...
Christmas was sweet - we opened up our presents, which were all awesome by the way. And then studied and proselyted like a normal missionary day. We visited members, less actives, and investigators, and sang them Christmas songs to wish them a merry christmas. I definitely saw the power of music when we sang to one of our families we're teaching. They lit up when we sang and were really wanting us to spend Christmas with them. They opened up, and we're going to teach them tonight, so we're looking forward to that. We all got together (all the missionaries) and made a big Christmas brunch. It was nice to just relax and enjoy time with all the missionaries. I got to call home and it was sweet to hear everyone's voices - all the fam back home. And then for our Christmas dinner, we actually went to Golden Corral! So that was actually surprisingly good, and surprisingly packed!! That place was full.
Sunday was a rough one for people at Church. Hardly anyone came, but it was good because all the other missionaries besides me talked and we all sang. It was funny because my companion was sharing the scripture and like 3 verses into it, he realized he was reading from the wrong chapter! He apologized in English and then continued on. I'm pretty sure he had absolutely no idea what he was reading...
So last night was another big highlight of the week. We had an incredibly long, unproductive day of tracting. We went everywhere, it seemed, and people would shut us down and say they weren't interested before we even had a chance to talk! We did meet some interesting people - Buddhists, atheists, a lot of people from foreign countries that couldn't speak English or Spanish... But it just seemed like nothing was working out all day long. Somehow everyone had today (P-day) open though, which was weird. So last night, at like 8:30 I decided we would try one more house before we went home to get jackets (it was pretty cold for Arizona and I've got a nasty cold). We stopped by a new investigator's house. This 20-ish year old woman opened the door before we even approached it (it was his sister) and asked if we had knocked. We said we didn't but we could if she wanted. Anyway, we took that as a good sign, and started to teach her. Basically we had a bomb awesome lesson, and because she's leaving like January 15, that's her baptismal date. She had worked with members and heard nothing but good things about the Church. We felt the Lord had prepared her, and really tested us during the day to see if we would continue to work hard through discouragement. It was probably the most exciting night of my mission, and we felt so blessed - that the Lord led us and will continue to lead us when we are righteous and obedient.
So yes, sweet week, and life is good :) HAPPY NEW YEAR!
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