Hola from the Canaries

Lots of photos and a letter in the middle!

View from sister Heims apartment. That's the ocean in the back ground.

Her family in Madrid. Sister Heims baptized all of these people.

 Her two bff's in Spain. Both converts.

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Hola Fam! I still cannot believe I am here in the islands. but then I just look out the window of the locoturio that I am at right now and I can see the ocean in the distant! So crazy! I have tons and tons of pictures to send you all. There are tons from the last week Hna Scheu and I were togther and then some from this week. I have so much to tell you about, I hope I have enough time. 

First of all, the island that I am on is called Tenerife and my area is La Laguna. The ward here is incredible! Seriously I cannot think of a more amazing ward to be in right now. Let me explain, the 2nd night we were here we got a call from the bishop welcoming us here, we had correlacion with our ward mission leader and him and his wife are recent converts of just one year but are absolutely amazing. I cannot be more excited to work with him. Then on Sunday we had the warmest most wonderful welcome you can every get from a ward. Since there havent been hermanas here for the last 25 years they were are thrilled for us to be coming. The elders let everyone know the week before that we were coming so when when we showed up on Sunday there were people literlly jumping up and down when they saw us. Literally jumping up and down! Every greeted us with big hugs, serveral people gave us their schedule right then and there for when they are free to come to lessons with us and others gave us there number and told us that there house is our house and our investigator´s house and that we can have lessons there anytime we want. Then others scheduled eating appointments with us! Seriously I just cannot believe it. I have never see so many people so willing and wanting to help us. I feel so humbled to be here and to work with and serve these wonderful people. BUT!!! Jajaja we eat with memebers just about every single day (which is so wonderful and I just love all of the members) but the elders have gained 20-30 lbs just from being here on the island. But, there is some hope for us Hermanas. The elders have cars and we walk so we are hoping that the walking will cancel out all of the food we eat now. Although so far it hasnt:/ jaja. And speaking of walking, I should probably use the word hiking instead. This island is SO hilly. We walk up and down hills all day long. We have tried and tried to get a good picture of the hills but pictures just dont do it justice. Just think of the San Francisco hills, you know those insane ones? Well that is the whole island. We calulated it and this last week we spent over 30hrs contacting (we were left an area book with old investigators but we have called or passed by all and no one has interest so we have to find all news) and walking up and down these hills. The first few days we thought it was funny but now not so much. We definitely crash hard at night. 

But, even though we have just contacted all day long every day this week we have found so many wonderful people and have quite a few appointments set up for this coming week. We have already invited about 5 different people to be baptized when they know that these things are true and they have said yes. And tomorrow we have an appt with a lady named Leidi (pronounced lady jaja) and we plan on setting a baptismal date with her. Her mom is a member and her brother is an investigator of the Elders and we ate at their house this last week and we just clicked with her so well and she ended up coming to church yesterday so we are super excited for her. So the work is hard starting from zero but we have truly been so blessed and have seen miracle after miracle here. I truly feel so humbled and grateful to be a missionary. 

Ok here is a little about the people/culture here. It is a totally different world here. I am not kidding you. There are barely any south americans, only like 5 members in the whole ward are from South America, the rest of from here. The people here are so so so different from the Spanish people. So they are nothing like South Americans but totally opposite from the Spainards (I have no clue how to spell that word!:/) They are jsus islanders. I dont know how to explain it but they are so laid back and overly friendly. It has been quite the change from Madrid. The weather here on my island and especially in my area is a little colder still. I am still wearing tights and a scarf but only a light jacket. We are told that within the next month or so it will really start to get warm! There are trucks here too. I have seen several actual trucks here. I about died when I saw a legit pick up truck, I havent seen one since I left the states! And I have also seen quite a few houses and not just streets lined with pisos. And the thing that I love most about here is that every lives as a whole family. Back in Madrid the majority of people were divorced and either had their kids in Madrid with them or had their kids back in their country living with grandparents. But here, since everyone is from here, they are all married and have kids. 

My district here. I cannot ever describe to you how amazing my distric is. The first district meeting on Wednesday morning every single one of us was in tears. It was so powerful. We talked about how we become a consecrated missionary. Our district leader had made lamenated cards for each of us about our goals as a district to become a consecrated district as well. I have never left a district meeting with as much ganas to really become better and that is saying something because I have been in some powerful meetings. I am excited to work with these elders and learn from them! A few of them were with me in the MTC so I know them pretty well which is fun. 

My companion! Hermana King is wonderful! Wednesday night after planning we sat down and made some serious personal goals and companship goals and planes on how to reach these goals. She is a hard worker and I am learning tons from her. Also, she did the spanish immersion program in elementary and middle school so up until 9th grade she went to school in Spanish so she speaks it fluently. I am excited to improve my spanish with her. 

Ok sorry for the novel. I hope you all have a great week! I love you! and am praying for you! Sounds like this week was a smidge better than the last few weeks. Enjoy all of the pictures! 

Love, Hermana Heims

These first two pictures are Hermana Scheu and I´s valentines card! We may or may not have laughed for hours about this. I actually am still laughing every time I look at them! We found a sweet app on my camera! jaja

 Funny VDay cards they made with a setting on Sister Heims' camera :) Funny Missionaries!

She arrived in the Islands safely!

Hola familia! I am on for about ten minutes to tell you all that I got here safely! It is still not real to me yet that I am in the canaries.

More and more each day on the mission I am coming to know more that Heavenly Father really has a sense of humor! And that He loves to push us FAR out of our comfort zones! But, I have a testimony that being out of the comfort zone is really the only way to grow so I am embracing it! Dont get me wrong... I am STOKED to be here in the islands! I cant believe it! Just other things along the way are pushing me far out of my comfort zone. So thank you for your prayers every day!

A quick update about my last week with Hermana Scheu (I will email pics next week)...

Gosh I seriously love Hermana Scheu and am so blessed I was her companion for 2 transfers. We had so serious fun, learned a ton from each other, helped each other grow a ton, and worked hard preaching this gospel. I have never laughed with anyone more (ok, Natalie is definitely a tie!) about just random things that happen. For example, the other day we had this address to pass by and all that we knew was that a guy named francis lived there. So we knocked and here is our convo...

Us: Good Morning, is Francis here?

Lady: What?

Us: Does Francis live here?

Lady: What? I dont understnad?

Us: Well, we are missionaries for the church of Jesus...

Lady: OHHHH, Francis , the pope, no, no, he is not here.

Us:(trying not to laugh) No, we are not looking for the pope, we are looking for a guy named francis, we have an address that says francis lives here.....

Anyways we ended up getting this lady's contact info but after we left and walked down the stairs we died laughing about how someone really thought we were asking if the Pope lived in this tiny piso in spain!

Here is the problem with Hna Scheu and I and all of our funny stories though, is that we tell them to other missionaries and I am not kidding you not a single one of them laughs... ever. So we are actually really confused. But hopefully you think they are funny! jaja

Ok I gotta run but I next week I have some serious miracles to write about. Gosh, I just love this work, I love this mission no matter how hard! There is truly nothing better.

I hope you all have a great week and all get healthy! Sorry everyone is sick witht he flu. BEAUTIFUL Pictures of the funeral. Holy cow. I am eager to herar how everything went. You all looked wonderful!

Les quiero! 

THE CANARY ISLANDS is getting a GREAT SISTER

The Canary Islands! I do not think I have time to email later this afternoon nor will I have time to read your emails which maks me sad but my train leaves in 6 minutes to take me to the airport. 

My companion will be Hermana King. We are headed to the island La Laguna and we will be opening this island for Hermanas. There have never been hermanas serving on this island, only elders. Say lots of prayers! This should be a crazy week:) This is defnitely a very humbling assignment. I will write next week (or maybe for ten minutes when I land in the island if we ahve time tonight) and tell you all about Las Islas Canarias! 

Ps... I am SO sad to leave this area, one of the hardest goodbyes. It was so terrible. And saying bye to Hermana Scheu sucked. Next week I have TONS of pics to send home of the two of us. We had tons of fun and saw TONS of miracles this week! 

pps. one of the most wonderful tender mercies of my life.......

Mom, your valentines day package got here on thursday, the day of grandmama´s funeral. And it had two pairs of her pajamas and tons of pictures of her and the family. So beautiful! 

I love you all and am praying for each of you! I hope everything went well this last week! 

Love, Hermana Heims

ppps... I will forward my flight plans to the canaries just for fun for you to see!

Javier was Baptized

Hi Family. 

I am on to chat if anyone is up. This week was a great week, my testimony was strengthened so much of the power of the atonement and how not only can we receive a remission from our sins through the atonement, but how we can also find comfort, peace, and strength. I was so watch over and taken care of this week and I just pray you all were as well. My heart hurts for you all so much but I know now more than ever before that families are eternal, we are not given anything we cannot handle without the help of Christ, and everything happens in the timing of God, whose timing is perfect. I pray you all find healing through our Savior Jesus Christ. There is a scripture that I found this week that I love. I forget where it is, I wrote it down but its at home. It is in the bible and it says "endure hardness like a good soldier of Christ" or something like that. I love it. I will continue to pray for you all. I know Heavenly Father is taking care of each one of you. I hope some of you are up and on to chat so I can see how you are all doing. 

We had a baptism this weekend, Javier got baptized yesterday and although there is a LONG story to go along with it, it will have to wait for another week. But I will send a picture of us. Its of Javier, Hermana Scheu, me, and Danny, our recent convert who baptized Javier.

I love you all so so so much and I hope you feel my love from way over here. 

Love Hermana Heims

Email from 1-27-14

Hi fam! We just got back from playing futbol! So much fun. We were the only hermanas that showed up to play but it was still fun,. Danny and a few other members came to play as well which made it super fun to play with natives and not just missionaries. Always after I play futbol I ask myself why the heck I didnt play in High School. I  have racked my brain trying to think of why I ever quit playing soccer but I cant remember why or even when. I hope there are people when I get back that like to play. It is such a fun game! 

Well, this week was def a good one! Nothing too crazy or eventful to share just that we are still working so hard to prepare Javier for his baptism on the 8th. 

So we have 3 DARLING girls who are all from the Dominican Republic (have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE dominicans?!) two are sisters and then another and they are 13, 14, 16 and this saturday was a young womens activity so we were super excited to bring them. We hyped up this activity all week and they were so excited for it. We went and pick up Anaika first and then headed over to grab the two sisters, Ana Christina and Andreina and on the bus to the chapel (we were running a little late so it was 6:20 and the activity started at 6) I get a call from the young womens president saying she is outside of Madrid and something came up adn she wont be able to make it and that she has no counselors so that we would have to be in charge of the whole activity. We were on intercambios that day so I frantically called Hna Scheu to ask for ideas and thankfully her and her comp were headed to the chapel in an hour so she told me to just play games with the girls until she got there and they would stop off and get ice cream and think of the Spiritual thought. I panicked! Seriously, yes, now I can come up with a spiritual thought on the fly but to entertain 7 young girls, the oldest being our one 16yr old for a whole hour panicked me! We played all sorts of different games but it was just an epic failure and I am pretty sure the girls were just laughing out of pity. Oh well. I was able to talk to the girls the whole way there and back to get to know them better and form a frienship with them which was a blessing. 

Also, we had Zone Conference this week and it was amazing and I left so edified and uplifted with new goals to mejorar as a missionary. We talked about how to really use the Book of Mormon in our lessons and the convincing power this Book has. We did an awesome practica that I loved. We paired off with another companionship and were given a question. One companioship had to answer the question without using the Book of Mormon and then we switched and the other companionship answered the question but was allowed to use the Book of Mormon. It was powerful. The spirit that entered that mini lesson the second we opened the Book Of Mormon and read from it was powerful. You could almost touch it. Then just two days later Hermana Scheu and I had a lesson with our family maravillosa (Enrique y Adriana) and it was tough but SO good. And we used the Book of Mormon to answer every question he had. Enrique unfortunately read a ton of antimormon stuff on line last week so when we showed up for our lesson on Friday he was fired up to try and prove us wrong. The first 5 or so minutes we were both so annoyed because this is never how he has even been. He was going on and on about poligamy and Joseph Smith and random stuff about the Book of Mormon. It was ridiculous and so not like him. He just kept going on and on about the the anti mormon stuff and all the "hard" questions that we heard about in the CCM.  I whispered under my breath to Hermana Scheu "dont get discouraged, just say a pray." We said a silent pray in our hearts and opened the scriptures and literally the Spirit just took over and guided us to several scriptures to answer his questions and resolve all of these doubts. It was truly a neat experience because there were several stuff that I said in contrary to the whole poligamy question that I had never even thought of before, the spirit just kept bringing things to our mind to say to help him resolve these doubts and understand and believe in the truth. It never got really heated but it defnitely was a nice, soft lesson. We walked out of the door, stopped and looked at each other and just said "wow, thank goodness for the spirit. That was incredible to witness" Truly there would be no such work without the spirit. I am so not capable by myself to do this work and answer all of these questions, but with the Spirit as your constant companion and as the true teacher, and with the Book of Mormon this work is possible, hearts are softened, and people are brought to understand and believe in the truth. Makes me think of Alma 26:11-13. There is nothing greater than this work. I am so in love with life and this work its just crazy!

Hermana Scheu and I have been studying consecration and humility this last week as we are truly trying to give our whole hearts to the Lord and hold nothing back. Just every single day I am in awe at how perfect this gospel is and how loving and merciful our Heavenly Father is. I invite you all to truly study the gospel principle of consecration. I have a long way to go and much more to study but day by day I am learning how to give my whole heart to the Lord and have my will swallowed up in His will. 

Also, another thing I have been thinking about a lot lately is how truly truly grateful I am that I was raised in a home where we said family prayer and read the scriptures every single day together. There is power in doing this. Thank you so so so much dad for never lettting our snotty, annoyed attitudes stop you from making us pray and read every day before we left for school and before we went to bed. Thank you so much! 

Thank you so much for all of your love and support! I feel it every day! I hope you all have a great week! 

Love, Hermana Heims

Email from 1-20-14

 Hola familia! I cannot believe it is already monday again! Crazy!

Well, to start off, our baptism on tuesday was so wonderful! Ah. Olga (his wife who just got baptized a few weeks ago as well), Hna Scheu and I all spoke and it was just so wonderful to baptize Ridel and know that Olga is already baptized and that they already have the goal to go to the temple to be sealed in exactly one year. I wish you could have seen the look on Olga´s face as Ridel came up out of the water. It was so special to see. They are wonderful. Olga gave me this beautiful pearl bracelet that night to thank me for bringing the gospel into their life and so that I have something to always remember them by. Although I definitely dont need a bracelet to help me remember them it was so sweet of her. 

Other super wonderful news is that Javier have a baptismal date!!!!! February 8th!!!!! I have told you all this before but really I have not met someone so sincere with such an incredibley strong desire to follow Christ and do what God wants him to do. We are just so excited for him. He has parents and sibligns that live in the states and two of his sisters are members back in his country. We are just so happy. A cool story is that we had a lesson with him Friday morning and the whole lesson was just on the Book of Mormon because he just LOVES his bible and reads it faithfully everyday and has had a harder time understanding and gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon but we brought a recent convert of about 3 weeks with us who was just like him who didnt leave the house without her Bible and now doesnt leave her house without her Book of Mormon and Bible to help us in the lesson. It was such a powerful lesson and al final de esta leccion we invited him to be baptized on a specific date and he just kinda put his head down and smiled so big and said yes. Then he left and said that as he was walking down the street he started to get really nervous and was thinking oh shoot what did I just say yes to when he looked up and there was a banner hanging on a building that said "todo estará bien" which means "everything will be ok". He took that as a sure answer from God that what he just said yes to was true and that this is the camino correcto. Miracle happen every day in this work and I am just so humbled to be a part of it!

haha so this probably isnt going to be funny to you guys but Hermana Scheu and I quote it at least 3 times a day. So we were making some visits to less active members and usually when we timbre the door (everyone lives in pisos and outside of the piso is a timbre thing where you ring their door and over an intercom talk to them) we say buenas, somos las hermanas "Hi, we are the sisters" (which sounds so awkward in english but I promise it is not awkward sounding in spanish jajaj) adn they usually respond with, ohhhh uhhh uhhhhh ok come up. or uhhh we are just about to leave come back later, or something like that. Well this guy we had never met, jsut knew his name was Luis and so we rung and said hola somos las hermanas anad he said SUPER EXCITED, "las hermanas??? Que guay!!!!" jajaja.Which means, the sisters??? COOOL! You defintely probably have to be there and be a missionary where you get doors closed in your face several times a day to think this is awesome but we think its pretty hilarious! It was just such a change from every other person we timbre. Needless to say he invited us up and gave us cookies and hot chocoalte as we sat out in the hallway because he lives by himself and shared a message with him. 

Ok gotta go, Adios! I hope you all ahve a great week! Thank you for everything! 

LES QUIERO!

Hermana Heims

ps, I am sitting here in jeans right now. SO WEIRD! This is my third time wearing pants in my whole mission since I left home 7 months ago! We are going bowling today so we get to wear jeans! 

Email from 1-13-2014

Happy birthday mom!!! I dont know why but here they say felicidades "congratulations" instead of feliz cumpleaños. Pero, MOM! Happy birthday! I love you so much! I will write you an individual email as well but I just wanted to start my letter by telling you how much I love you and how much I have thought about you this week. All of my investigators know it is your birthday today too! And they all say Felicidades! 

This week was such a good week! The change that I am so blessed to see in the lives of my investigators is just unreal. Nothing compares to it. Although Satan has just been so darn annoying in some of these changes recently, I know that these people have been prepared by Heavenly Father and little by little will come to know the truthfulness of this gospel. Because let me tell you, this gospel is tue! I had no clue I could have a deeper testimony of this before I left on my mission because before I left I had not a single doubt in my mind but now, its just even deeper and I know with a surety that this is the true, and only church of Jesus Christ on the earth and that it was restored to the earth again through the profet Jose Smith. How blessed are we to ahve this knowledge?! Last night we did a passby to a family that we met in the street alwhile ago but we have yet to actually teach them much besides a spiritual thought here and there and last night only the two kids were home so we taught a little bit and then helped the girl with her english homework before we headed out and man, this family just has no love and hope in their life. It is the most saddest thing to walk into their house and just feel no love between them and no love for life or anything. Last night it truly broke our hearts. We are hoping to bring some love, hope, and peace into their home and teach them about the infinite and perfect love of our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ. 

Also this week was a bit of a long week just becuase one of the other Hermanas in our ward has been sick for weeks now and finally her body just was worn out and the dr told her to stay inside for at least 4-5 days so we did a lot of intercambios to get her comp out of the house and also so that they could still be able to teach their lessons throughout the week. So there were quite a few days this week where I stayed in with her for a few hours while my comp and her comp were out teaching. I finally made a pretty good dent in Jesus The Christ (the book that is just about 800 pages long) and holy cow I am loving this book! This book is incredible. Although it is no easy read my any means, I am learning a ton and coming to understand and know my Savior even more. 

We were so so blessed again this week to have several of our investigators come to church again and wow it was SUCH a great sunday! The talks and the lessons seriosuly could not have been more perfect. I love our ward. We are so excited for this coming week and the following to hopefully start seeing some real progression with these people that have been coming to church the past few weeks. Oh and one neat thing that happened yesterday at church was in sacrament meeting we were about to start and we had our investigators pretty spread out throughout the congregation with different members and such and hna Scheu and I were sitting right in front of our beautiful family (andriana y enrique) and their little girl victoria was sitting up with us and a guy comes in and squeezes next to me. I chat with him for jsut like two minutes before we start adn get his story because I had never seen him before and he is from some African country, came here about 3 months ago, has no clue why he is here just that he felt like he should up and move to spain. So a last week he was praying before he left his house that morning for some guidance on why he is here and what he is supposed to be doing here. He was in a taxi later that day and drove by the church and saw the words "Jesucristo" and knew that that is why he came here... to go to that church. So he showed up on Sunday and just loved every minute of it and said he just felt so much peace and happiness being in the chapel. Adn that we wants to learn more. So so so awesome right? Too bad he lives outside of our area so I have to pass his reference on to other missionaries, but as long as he gets taught then I am happy! He was such a neat guy! And sucha testimony that Heavenly Father is preparing so many epople right now. 

Jaja one funny thing that happened this week... hna Scheu and I were walking down the street to our lesson and just after we crossed a street we walk by two small pigs walking behind their owners. We walked passed and both stopped dead in our tracks turned around to do a double take and yep, sure enough two pigs just walking right behind their owners. Jaja we laughed pretty hard! I was bummed I didnt have my camera with me. 

Ok well I love you family! Thank you so much for your love adn support! WE are excited to have Ridel´s baptism this tuesday so next week Ill ahve pics from teh baptism! He is so ready and so is his sweet wife. He came out of his baptismal interview yesterday just beaming! 

Les quiero muchisimo! 

Con amor, Hermana Heims

Email from 1-6-14

Feliz dia de los Reyes familia! este dia es mas grande que Navidad! Las personas aqui reciben hoy sus regalos de los reyes! Entonces, Papa Noel no trae los regalos, pero los reyes! La semana pasada, en vez de Papa Noel, habia muchos reyes en los centro comerciales donde los niños pudieron visitar y decirles que querían! Gracioso! Pero bueno. 

Happy Day of the Kings family! Today is a bigger holiday than Christmas. The people here receive their presents today from the kings (the 3 wisemen). So, Santa Claus doesnt bring gifts for Christmas, but the kings bring the gifts on the 6th of Jan. The past week, instead of Santa Claus, there were tons of Kings in the malls where the kids could go and visit and tell them what they wanted. Funny huh?! Granted, there are TONS of South American people here and this is not in South America so many families still do it our way where Santa brings the gifts and what not back in December, but the Spanish tradition is that the 3 kings bring the gifts on the 6th of January. So today the whole country is a ghost town, everything is closed and everyone is with their families. 

Although I LOVE holidays and the Christmas Spirit and the family love that is all around still, I am not going to lie, I am ready for the holidays to be over. Literally the past 4ish weeks have been so so slow work wise because when there is a holiday here everything just shuts down, no one can meet with us, and they just party till their hearts are content. So since before Christmas, until about another week, work has just been sloooooow. Everyone we contact on the street, several of our investigators, ward members, and just everyone tell us to not bother them till after the holidays. jaja. But, that being said, it was such a good week this last week! here is a quick run down...

Ridel... I am not sure if I have ever mentioned him in my emails but he is the husband to Olga (la mujer that just got baptized a few weeks ago) and way back when we first started teaching Carlos and Reinier and Duglas he was always there and would chat with us but the second our lessons started we would leave. Then, Olga became our investigator and todavia in the beginning he would leave. But, then after a few lessons, we would stay in the tent when we would teach but he would just be in the background (but I knew he was listening and often times we would prepare lessons more for him and not necessarily for her bc we knew he was in the background listening) and then we had a temple tour with the both of them back in the beginning of Diciembre and wow! since then things have changed a ton with him. He started to listen in on the lessons. He would never participate but would always come over and listen in. THEN! her baptism is what really did it! Ever since her baptism the 21st of decimber he has been so much more open with us and we have had some really great discussions with him. Well, on tuesday we just felt so strongly that he is ready for baptism so we had a lesson with just Olga and Ridel (we taught them eternal marriage) and we asked them to come to the chapel instead of meeting in Sol in the tent and we invited Ridel to first become an investigator and second to be baptized and his response..."I know this church is true, I want to be sealed to Olga for eternity, I want to have an eternal family, so yes I will be baptized. I have already thought about it and I want to be baptized the 14th of January, Olga´s birthday!!" To say the least we were super emotional and super excited! So we are preparing him to be baptized the 14th of January and we couldnt be happier. Olga of course is beyond happy as well. But at the very end of our lesson she looked at me and said, Hermanita, when do you go home? I told her December of 2014. She started crying and said, you wont be able to come to our sealing on January 14th, 2015 will you??... Yeah, about broke my heart right in half. This might be the hardest thing about serving a mission outside of the states is that coming back for big things like this just isnt as easy. Makes me so, so sad. but I am filled with so much love for them and I am just so happy that they already have a goal to be sealed exactly one year from his baptism. There is just nothing better than serving a mission. Ahhh, all of these people are so special to me. 

And speaking of all of these people being so special to me.... ME QUEDO!!!!!!!!!! Wahoooo!!! I did not get transfered. Hna Scheu, Yo as you all call her and I are staying together here in Barrio 5. We are both so so happy! Although of course I would have gone where ever I was sent and I would have loved it and I am so so feliz to be staying here for one more transfer. Because.... Family, I LOVE THESE PEOPLE! The past few weeks I have gotten so close to a few of the ward members and all of my recent converts and investigators are SO wonderful I couldnt have imagined leaving quite yet. I feel so blessed to be able to serve here for 6 more weeks. But, this probably means that next transfer when I will for sure be leaving it will probably be harder to leave, but it will be worth it! 

Yesterday at church we had several of our investigators come and it was just such a special Sunday! We felt so blessed to have so many people at church. Our BEAUTIFUL family, Enrique, Adriana, y their kids came and let me just tell you, they are wonderful. They came late because they have a car and there was an accident that they got stuck in so they only came for the last two hours but thankfully they made it for Sacrament Mtg and it was so good! Fast and testimony is such a wonderful sunday for people to come! Javier also came for the 3rd week in a row and although we have to go super poco a poco with him, we are sure that soon he will have a baptismal date as well. He is so great and has one of the most sincere desires I have ever seen to follow Christ and do what God wants him to do. 

And to answer everyone´s questions about new years eve... just a normal day of lessons and what not and in bed by 11! haha! Sounds like I stayed up longs than the Iversons though. jaja. But I serve in Sol, which is like the New York of Spain so here is where they have their big stuff, comparable to teh ball drop at time square, so the metros and buses aroudn my area closed early so we jsut made all of our appointments close-ish to home so we could just walk everywhere. And our last lesson was with Jessica and her boys. And we knew that they dont have family here so we brought over Mac N Cheese (hne scheu got it for Christmas) and made it with the boys and ate mac and cheese (the boys LOVED it!), salad, and some other food that Jessica made! It was so much fun!!! Hahah A fun tradition that they do here and in practically all south american countries is that they eat 12 grapes at 12 oclock. They ring a bell twelve times and at each rign you eat a grape, one grape for each month to bring you good luck throughout the year. So the week before grapes sales and signs and stand were everywhere! haha. Also, their new years festivities BEGIN at 12! haha they dont end at 12! So at twelve they do their whole "time square" thing and then they eat a huge meal and stay up dancing and partying all night long. So for example, the JAS (YSA) activity/dance started at 11pm and ended at 8am the following morning! And speaking of dancing, have I ever mentioned how I SO wish I could be latin so I could dance like them?! I love the way they dance!!!!!!

Ok, I hope you all enjoyed the novel! jaja I came to the locutorio this morning thinking, shoot this is going to be a small email, I dont have anything to say this week. jaja. 

Thanks you family and friends for everything! I am so thankful for each one of you! Les quiero muchisimo!

And fam, can you please tell these few people how truly grateful I am so them! There are so many that have emailed me and sent me things so I almost dont want to mention names in fear of forgeting someone and as a result hurting them but a few people that I jsut truly appreciate..... 

-Debbie Wanless... every two weeks I get a little note from her! Love it! 

-Cara Meidell and Jenni Amundsen email me every once in a while with an update about their family and to say hi and both of their emails make me so happy! I am so thankful for both of them. 

-Jenny Clark, I recieved her Christmas package this week and she is just so wonderful!!! How did our family get so blessed to have her and Pete as part of our family??

-Grandmere, with out fail I have a few emails every week from her telling me how much she loves me, what she has been doing, and how much she has been praying for me, my companion, and each one of my investigators. 

-Dev Dev! She emails me also all of the time with updates and to say hi. You all have no clue how much those small emails me to me on the mission!

-Natalie! You all know everything about her but man I love her so much! 

LES QUIERO!!!!