Hola!!! Well, I am here! Can you believe it? I certainly can't! But at the same time I totally can because I feel like I was never in the MTC and I have been in Texas
I am going to be completely honest with you, missions are HARD! I think this week has been one of the most humbling experiences of my life. We have spent most of the time contacting this week and trying to find new investigators but it has been hard. I thought that with the holidays, people would be more inclined to want to hear more, but in fact, they all seem to be more religious. Sister Bricker said this week has been her hardest time finding in her whole mission. I am just super pumped I got to experience that with her. ;) But it is all okay, we have been praying about certain areas and are trying to be more prompted about where to go to contact because we just haven't been having luck.
On the other hand, we have a few families in mind that are totally going to get baptized, I just know it! I will have to fill you in more next week because we will be meeting with them this week. Our mission has a goal of 1200 baptisms this year and we were at 1105 before this Sunday so I don't know exactly where we are now, but closer! Next year the goal is 1400. Yup, 1400 baptisms in one year. We are going to do it! It is a huge number but I know the Lord has prepared those people to be baptized, we just need to find them and prepare them.
Another blessing of this mission (the Lord knows me so well) is that we have a few companionships assigned to each ward. We work with three different wards (2 English, 1 Spanish) and so do other missionaries in our zone, so yesterday at church we were with like 7 other companionships throughout the day. The wards are just crawling with missionaries! It helps me so much to see the progress of the other missionaries and to see us all united in the cause. We just have so many missionaries for our small mission that it is just so dense and I LOVE IT! After a really rough week, it was such a blessing to come to church for 8 hours straight and be able to see the other missionaries and just be uplifted by the gospel. I love it!
Another great thing about having so many missionaries is that we have baptisms like crazy. We had three in our building (29th and Dove, look it up) last night between three companionships (mine included!) and we had to coordinate when and where to do them all. Crazy but it ended up being awesome! We baptized J_____. His wife was baptized a few weeks ago and his two daughters the week after so he was the last of the 4 and I am so excited for them to work towards the temple now. O I just love them!
Another blessing is that the church is in our area so when we contact people, we can tell them that the church is just down the street! So all the streets around the church (I know you are looking this up on Google Earth) are in our area. We have from 23rd Street Auburn
This week has been full of ups and downs. It started with wondering what I am doing here and getting homesick for Christmas (Chirstmas time + new area + new to the mission + hard week = BAD NEWS). After kicking myself and remembering to forget myself and go to work and getting use to what actual mission work is like, it is actually a ton better! I know this is where I am supposed to be and I truly am happy here. We have a lot of fun. We have another companionship with us so there are 4 of us in our apartment and so we have fun.
So about Christmas, we are going to the Bishop of the Spanish ward’s house for Christmas Eve with the other missionaries in the ward (us, the other sisters we live with, our district leader and his comp, and the APs). Christmas day we have two one-hour blocks of church (one in English, one in Spanish) then I don't know what we will do for the rest of the day yet. I think the 4 of us Hermanas will have dinner together probably. I will be calling you at 3:00 pm Texas
Another tender mercy is that our apartment has a washer and dryer and so the Edinburg sisters come over to do their laundry on p-days and guess who is an Edinburg
P.S. I love how the Spanish here is so interchangeable. I love being able to turn it off and on whenever because then when I get home, I won't be struggling with English again. I can turn it off and on, and I can teach in both languages too. O my, I am just so blessed!
Well, my time is running out but I would love to hear from you soon! I don't know about printing off letters here at the library (it is on Lark Ave just north of the church if you want to see it) so if you want to hand write more letters, I would be okay with hearing from you more. :) Yes the address you got is my apartment and I should be here for awhile. Hand-writing letters won't be hard I swear. :) I love you all so much and I look forward to telling you more about Texas
P.S. I have loved the 12-days of Christmas. It gets me out of bed in the morning.
P.P.S. Grandma Joyce, you are the BEST! I loved the survival kits and my comp loves you too!!!! I love you!!!!
Kate
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