Email 12/29/2010

Why Hello!

Yes I probably need to send pictures soon but we never have time. I was sooo behind on letters I finally got somewhat caught up this last week and sent like 10 out, P-days are a myth, they fly by.

Christmas was good, it still doesn't feel like December, but it was good. Sister "C" made us stockings and the whole nine yards and we had our own little tree and everything! We spent half the morning trying to bring around cookies to our investigators that Sister O made. (My companion is Betty Crocker well actually she prefers I call her Martha Stewart.) We kept getting invited in and we ate like 3 breakfasts. A lot of investigators gave us really cute gifts.

We had lunch with the family we live with and their extended family, which we are basically a part of, and then we made dinner. Well let's be honest, Sister O made dinner and I watched for The other "C" family that we are teaching. They are a very funny family, very sarcastic so we got along well and we hung out with them for the rest of the night. They got us cute presents too, sweaters and perfumes. It was fun that we pretty much spent the entire day with our Investigators.

But I still think the best present we got for Christmas was "B". SHE'S GETTING BAPTIZED ON SATURDAY! So happy! We have another baptism today too:) Anywho that was a really good Christmas Eve to be able to spend an hour with her and give her the scriptures with her name engraved on them and to hear her testimony. "B" has been looking for the truth for soo long, she went to just about every religion and just never felt right. She knows her stuff which is nice it is a lot easier to teach someone who actually has read the bible and what the believe lol because most people don't know what they believe, it's annoying. It's been so fun to watch her fall in love with the gospel, lol she's always saying "Sisters this church is true!!" We're like "We know hence why we are here"..lol. I would not be giving up a prime year and a half of my life if I wasn't 100% sure.

She's probably read the Bible 50-60 time and the Book of Mormon 2 times in the last few weeks she has had it. We went and saw her yesterday and she was almost done with Doctrine and Covenants. She's had it like 2 days! She's so cute! She always is calling us her little angels and god's gift to her. It's so cool how Heavenly Father works and how we were placed in her path at just the right time. I love her, not in the same way you love your friend, but I feel God's love for her and he loves her ALOT, understandably she is amazing! Yesterday we had planned on teaching her a lesson about Temples, but instead she taught us. She told us a year from Saturday she will be going lol and we told her that she could go next week for Baptisms and she started to tear up and ask "really?" So she will be going for that part next week I'm guessing lol. I wish we could go with her!!

Sundays we have a meeting at 6 AM and from then on we have Church until 4:30. This is the downfall of the Spanish and the English work...we have to go to all their meetings. Luckily two of our wards meet out the same time so we get out of one. But we sang the same songs in just about every ward on Sunday. Last week was entertaining though in the Spanish branch. *So little side note - our Hispanic people sing, most of them did not grow up learning how to read music, and most of them are converts so they don't know the songs, so the hymns are a little rough usually. But last Sunday they did a Christmas program and they had made their own little choir and they would tell part of the Nativity story and then sing songs the whole meetings. They had tried to be creative and add new parts and solos, which was great, but my favorite part was when I believe they were supposed to be singing stronger; forte or whatever.. to them that meant YELL. So it sounded like an adult primary program. It was awesome.

Hma O and I are determined to make our crazy days a little more interesting so we have started a few little competitions. We have dinner every night with different families and we have started writing thank you notes on post it notes. We take turns and whoever hides the post it note in the most creative spot without the family seeing, wins. So the whole time the family is asking us where we are from and stuff we are trying to distract them. I stuck the post it note in their fridge on the milk so they probably saw it the next morning, but Sis O beat me the next night and went to wash her hands in the bathroom and she unraveled the toilet paper and randomly placed the post it note in the roll so the next person to use the bathroom would have a little surprise.

We are also supposed to talk to at least 10 random people on the street a day (called OYM's for Open Your Mouths) and they are awkward and every missionary dislikes doing them and the people dislike us too so it's a win-win. So we are trying to make those more fun as well. We try to find the strangest people, which has made for some awesome quotes, but that's a whole other story. Also if we are talking to someone who really really, really doesn't want to be talking to us, we have a competition to see who can ask them the most questions and annoy the crap out of them. It's probably not "Christ-like" but some of these people are just stupid so we practically chase them while Hma O asks the most obvious questions like, "Is that your dog?!" (As they are walking it) "It looks like it's black..is it black?" Seriously may have peed a little when they didn't say anything to her and just gave her the most annoyed look EVER. Our sense of humor is so dulled on the mission we have to find comedy somehow.


I love you and miss you!
Love,

Kaitlyn