I feels like forever since I last emailed! What are the odds that my Preparation Day would fall on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. It was definitely a new experience to celebrate the Holidays in the Mission Field but we sure made the best of it and had a lot of fun!
Christmas Day we had District Meeting... meaning we shared a few of our goals then ate Breakfast Pizza that I made and opened presents from our gift exchange. Elder Nelson had me and gave me a little coin purse. I had Elder Powell and gave him a "cop kit" from the dollar store (because he wants to be a cop when he gets home) and Sangria. It was a lot of fun. Afterwards we went to The Martinez's to attempt to skype.... sorry family that that failed :(..... but then we got stuck there because there was a tornado warning and we couldn't go outside. We ended up eating empanadas (no clue how to spell them but they were delicious) and just talking with their family for awhile. Then we got to our apartment and called our families. I was so wonderful to be about to talk to everyone! I love and miss you all!
New Year's was definitely a little different since we didn't stay up till 12. I can't remember the last time I didn't stay up till 12! The people here in New Orleans sure know how to party though. The fireworks started going off at 5 pm on Monday and continued ALL NIGHT!!!! It was crazy how many fireworks there were. New Year's Day was really fun though. It was our P-Day so my whole district went to New Orleans. We walked through the French Market, Jackson Square and down the main street in that area stopping at a bunch of shops. It was craziness downtown since it was New Year's Eve plus everyone was getting ready for the SugarBowl which is actually today. They had this little Fan Fest area that we stopped at and got free t-shirts about the SugarBowl. We were all pretty excited about the free shirt. That night we weren't allowed to leave our apartments after 6 pm so we watched the Joseph Smith movie on our neighbors big tv!!!
On Sunday I finished The Book of Mormon!! It's always such an amazing feeling to finish The Book of Mormon. I had started it when I got to the MTC but only read a little every day because I was studying lots of other things. But when I got to LA a started dedicating a lot more time to finish The Book of Mormon! I really loved reading it all the way through and I learned so much. It's amazing that you can read the same verse or chapter or book multiple times and learn something different every time.
Since my last email we have 2 new investigators!!!! Lourdes is from Honduras but lives in New Orleans, downtown New Orleans with her two little kids, Jonathan and Joanna. The NO Elders have been teaching her English outside her house for a few weeks but thought it would be best for us to teach her the lessons since she is a single women and it's getting cold out so they can't teach her outside. We had our first lesson with her two weeks ago. We covered the Restoration and she accepted the invitation to be baptized. We had our second lesson with her today and she committed to be baptized on February 2nd!!!!!! So exciting! Hopefully things go well the next few weeks as we continue to teach her. But she is super open and just loving everything that we have taught. We attended church a few weeks ago while the Elders were teaching her English. She said that she loved it and learned a lot.
Our second investigator is Caroline. She is 21 and has a adorable daughter named Jaslyn. Caroline has never had much religion in her life but now that she has a 2 year old daughter she wants to have a happy home and raise her daughter with religion. We have had a lesson with her about the first points in the Restoration lesson. She also committed to be baptized and kept going on and on about how excited she is. She came to church this Sunday! Afterwards she turned to me and said "I love this. I want to be here every single Sunday." I'm so excited for Caroline and her desires to find the truth!
I love and miss you all!
con amor,
Kim
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