Feliz Navidad de Yakima!

Buenas Dias Mis Amigos y Amigas!

This past week has been interesting to say the least... miracles, another bad cold, exchanges, and a WHOLE LOT SNOW right outside. It's been so beautiful! and of course, I have the best companion in the world!

So Monday we met some wonderful people, including Veronica, who let us right in when we offered to say a prayer for her family, and we could just feel the strong spirit in her home, she LOVED it!  We left her with the Christmas video card!

Tuesday we had a super fun district meeting, and then we taught Karen again, we put her on date for January 16th, she is so excited!  She hasn't decided if she really wants to go to English or Spanish, so in the mean time, we will continue teaching her!  Then we left cards with so many people!  Heavenly Father truly blessed us with the spirit to let those doors open despite the cold weather!  At the end of the night we stopped by a member who we just recently met.  She's slightly less active but she LOVES the missionaries!  She is a single Mom of 7 kids... 7!  She is the rock of everything in their family!  She had bought pan dulce in celebration of us coming over, (mexican donuts, delicious bread sprinkled with sugar, chocolate, and all sorts of goodness). The kids could barely sit patiently. Then we heard her pray... She has the mind of an Angel. She is so sincere and thoughtful in her prayers. She prayed for us and for our families, our investigators, and every single person we come in contact with.  She told us her conversion story as we talked about our many blessings and how much more carefully we can count them each, especially around this time of year. 

Wednesday we attended our Christmas Gathering where we got our packages, had musical numbers from each zone, and luckily, since my zone is the only full Spanish zone, we sang all the original Christmas songs everyone did, but in Spanish.. of course!  Por que no?  It was so much fun to be around everyone and enjoy our time at the Tree's house. Elder and Sister Tree are stake missionaries and own a beautiful home out on the edge of our area, where we all met and ate lunch. They provided lunch and then we all watched Meet the Mormons and watched some special videos shared by President Lewis.  We came in contact with two sweet referrals over the phone.  One was from a member and one was a Self Media Referal... GOLDEN!  He kept saying on the phone that he wants us to teach him TODO, which means everything.  He's such a blessing to us!  We are so excited to meet him! 

Thursday we volunteered at the Salvation Army Food Bank, where we met and talked to lots of wonderful people getting ready to celebrate Christmas with their families. We were without the car that night and so it was pretty difficult to get a lot done without the car in the snow, but we did talk to some sweet people!  Then we had a church tour with Karen, and showed her around church to get her excited for Sunday, and she said she loved it!

Friday we planned like crazy, and then we had our branch Christmas party, which President and Sister Lewis came to, and they had a blast with our Hispanic traditions!  We even had a WEDDING!  The other sisters' investigators has been preparing to get baptized and so we ended up having the wedding at the Christmas party! It was so cool! Then we had a Santa Claus come to our party, and the kids, as tradition, dance in a circle around Santa before they sit on his lap, and the Santa is a member of the YM in the branch, and loved doing it!  I don't have pictures from the wedding or party, except for the ones of our investigator with the elders which I forwarded to most of you before now.  We started exchanges after the wedding, and even though we already live with the sisters who we went on exchanges with... Haha, we just switched rooms for the night! 

Saturday we did service for a member, whose home the other sisters are skyping at for Christmas, by packing up her house and moving her to the other new house!  It was fun and energetic, she even made us rice, beans and tamales... Heaven on a plate, I'm telling you!  Later that night we taught Francisco and Chessy, who came to church the next day with Chessy's Mom, Delia!  They came!  So did Karen!  And then Jose was there with his family, just like every week as if he's member, cough cough!  He is doing great as well!  We are visiting them on Christmas!  We also eat with the branch this week, so we'll get to spend time with these wonderful brothers and sisters Heavenly Father has blessed us missionaries with. 

This past week was all great! Except for having a horrible cold towards the end of the week, and a burning sore throat, which I passed to Hermana Aldirch... So we bought juice, some kleenex and some cough drops, so we should get better in no time!

Feliz Navidad a mi familia y mis amigas.  Yo se que Cristo vive, y El es la razon que vivimos, y vamos a vivir otra vez, el es nuestro salvador, hermano, consejo, amigo, y mi todo! Voy tratar mi mejor durante mi mision por que le amo, El is todo para mi!  Gracias por todo lo que hacen para mi, especialmente sus oraciones, siento sus oraciones cada dia cuando tenemos seguridad y felicidad en nuestras corazones. 

Yo dicho estas cosas en el nombre de Jesucristo.  Amen. 

FELIZ NAVIDAD, EL ES LA RAZON POR LA.... SEASON. :)

The guy with the elders of our branch is Jose, who is our investigator who has already taken the temple classes and taken all the discussions.. just waiting on the divorce! 

And the sweet girls in the branch, who brighten up my day every day, and with their broken Spanish/English.

Love these people!