Merry Christmas!!

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!! My Christmas was wonderful and very relaxing (and also happened to be my 5 month mark. Crazy!! I'm almost a third of the way done with my mission but I feel like I just got here..). We spent our afternoon with a member and his family and we helped him build a new TV stand and they fed us and it was great. Then we went to Tianabelle's and she let us use her computer to Skype our family's. It was so great!! I didn't cry, which I sort of feel bad about now because a lot of the elders said they cried. Hopefully my family still knows that I love them even though I didn't shed any tears...Then we had Christmas dinner, which consisted of pizza. Yep, that's right. But it was actually so awesome. Even though it wasn't big and fancy, we loved it because it was calm and relaxing and we didn't have to think about anything. But also for an explanation on the pizza. Hispanics celebrate Christmas on the 24th, so we did have a big dinner at a members house on the 24th. The 25th is pretty much just another normal day I guess.

I got a new companion last Wednesday and she is seriously so awesome. She is from the Dominican Republic and this is her last transfer on her mission so sadly, we won't be companions for very long. But because her first language is Spanish, we speak Spanish pretty much 24/7 and it's so great. My Spanish has already improved a lot because of that and it helps a lot because it feels more natural when I speak it all the time. It is kind of hard to switch back to English sometimes though because I just want to talk to everyone in Spanish and then I start talking and realize halfway that they don't speak Spanish. Anyways, Sister Alvarez is pretty much the missionary I want to be. She is super obedient (not that I'm disobedient, but she is a rockstar at obedience) and she is always looking for opportunities to serve and she is an amazing teacher. I love her. And I'm so grateful she's my companion.

We're hoping to have 5 more baptisms this transfer. I know that sounds crazy. But we're pretty sure we can make it happen because we're working with some really solid investigators right now. All 5 of them are children. Two of them are grand kids of a member couple and they've been coming to church since September. Both of them want to get baptized so we just need to finish teaching them the lessons. The hardest part is finding them at home. That's why they haven't gotten baptized sooner. But they came to Bethany's baptism and they loved it and they really want to get baptized so we think this will help us be able to meet with them more often. The other three are kids of another member we find knocking doors. She didn't know how to get in contact with the church when she moved here from the Dominican Republic so we're excited to help her get back to church and her kids are practically jumping up and down to go to church so we're really excited to work with them.

Today has been a relaxing p-day. I'm finally getting around to all of those letters I've been procrastinating. So if you've written me a letter in the past 2 months and I never responded, you should be getting one pretty soon...

I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday and remembered the importance of Christ in our lives. Have a great New Year!

I love you all!
Hermana Parkin