Happy New Year familia! I hope all are happy and recovering from Christmas and ready for some New Year’s Eve fondue! I am. Well it was just fantastic and wonderful to be able to talk to EVERYONE on Christmas! Being stateside is quite convenient I must say. I’m happy that everyone had a great Christmas!
I think for me, Christmas Eve is always a little bit more exciting than Christmas day. Zone Conference was just really good to have on Christmas Eve. And there’s this woman in Tustin, who’s from Korea and wants to learn English. So it’s sort of like service, but really we go and talk to her about the gospel in English. And she’s so nice. Asians are so friendly, I love it! There’s another woman we do this with later in the week, and I always wish we could spend more time talking to them. We invited her to go to church on Sunday and meet the elders, and even though she was really nervous that she wouldn’t look right, the elders told us that she went and said that everyone was much nicer than at her Catholic Korean church. Yeah! We also went and visited our crazy Joanne on Christmas Eve. We sang to her and her son and just spent a little time there. It’s just so fun to be with people on Christmas Eve. Life would just be easier if I didn’t get attached to people so quick!
Of course talking to you all was the highlight of Christmas day. We didn’t do much the rest of the day. We went home and ate candy I think. We actually played a little indoor soccer with a couple of elders in one of the chapels. That was pretty fun-no injuries. Then that night we went around and delivered some cards with our pictures (so people will remember us!) and treats to members and recent converts and investigators. We didn’t really do any official teaching because there really wasn’t much time. We just tried to see everyone that we could.
What about the rest of the week. Well now that we’re in this sort of “new” area, we are always doing A LOT of knocking doors. So we did that this weekend. As missionaries it’s kind of like you’re mining for gold. You have to work hard picking through the dirt, and then you have to sift through as much as you can, and sometimes you think you find the good stuff-the gold, but really it’s that fool’s gold. Sometimes you spend some time on people that you find out aren’t so much the golden investigators. But if you sift through enough, you find the gold, right? How’s that for an analogy! I think it’s pretty good, worthy of an Erin or Dad analogy. Speaking of analogies, I wish I had more of an ability to come up with those on the spot, because it’s always helpful for people to have an example or something visual to relate to. I think Erin with her 5 analogies a day would be good at this missionary business. When I was here in Orange the other transfers, when we were walking around, we would have to pick an object that we saw-like a lamppost, and then relate it to something in the gospel, but in Spanish. Helped us practice Spanish, fill time, and you never know when you can use that analogy later.
So. We had a couple of appointments with Octavio this weekend, trying to see him lots before his baptism. We talked about reading the scriptures one day, and then on Saturday we had a little film night at the church. We invited him and Eulalio and Humberto and Francisco to all come watch the Joseph Smith movie that they show in the JSMB in Salt Lake. As missionaries, we’re used to 30 min movies, so an hour and a half was LONG. I think your attention span as a missionary is not very good. But they liked it. Eulalio has really progressed since we first were teaching him. He talks more-doesn’t just say “esta bien.” And we even got him to say the prayer at Octavio’s baptism. Yeah! We call all of these guys “the hermanos.” Francisco was baptized last spring, and invited his friend Humberto to learn. And Humberto was baptized in August and invited this guy he worked with (that the sister’s also knocked into) to learn too-Eulalio. And now they all know Octavio. So they’re a good little support system for each other and we’ve taught them all a lot. Octavio’s baptism went really well. He seemed like he was happy and nothing went wrong-so that’s good. And the elders are already getting him to go out teaching with them this week and that’s really good. He wants so much to be a missionary; we’re hoping he can be a ward missionary.
They just rearranged our bishopric. Obispo Vazquez and his family are from Argentina and are moving back there so they had to make some changes in the bishopric. I love the Vazquez family, they are one of my favorites, and we will all miss them a lot. They are just happy people. We decided he’s a “jolly” bishop; he sits up on the stand and just smiles at everyone. Our new bishop is a pretty young guy, though probably pretty experienced in the church as far as this type of stake goes. And he’s very missionary-minded and on the ball, almost intimidating. But it will be good because I think he will really be able to help us. Good things will happen!
Lupe’s husband Ernesto came to church with them on Sunday, so that was wonderful. We’re really going to try and see if we can teach him. It’s amazing how things really do change for some of these people after they get married and live the commandments! If only Araceli’s husband would get it, as well as Stephanie and Danny’s parents who aren’t married. We’ll see!
Yesenia and Abel were going to come to church-even to the baptism. We had a cita with them Sat. but Yesenia wasn’t there. We just read 3 Nephi 11 with Abel and reminded about church on Sunday at 11, and he said “hey, I thought I was invited to come to a baptism at 9:30.” Oh yeah! We are so impressed by him. Some people say that Satan controls the waters, I think he controls cars. They left at 9am for church, but there car had problems and they were never able to come. Lame! So we went over and taught them yesterday a little more. It’s so unusual (for me so far on the mission) to have both a husband and a wife be willing to listen. Especially because Abel seems to be the one who gets it more and is more ready. We’re really excited about them and are going to set a date with them for baptism this week.
We have interviews with the president this week and get to go to the temple in a couple of weeks-which is great. Announcements don’t always get all around the mission, but I found out from my comps that we are now not going to be allowed to go to the temple every transfer. When Elder Jensen came the other month, he didn’t think we needed to do that, so now it will be every other transfer. Not my most favorite idea. But I’m just glad that this transfer we do get to go.
That’s mostly it. I can’t believe it will be January this week! I hope everyone is healthy and happy and the babies and kids are adults are all doing wonderfully! Thank you everyone for making sure to help me have a wonderful Christmas! I love you all!
Love,
Emily
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