DAD?! MOM?! YOU'RE THE BEST FAMILY EVER!!

Dear Daddy, Momma, Kitty, Sammy, and Goosey,

I CAN'T BELIEVE I TALKED TO YOU CARA A CARA ESTA SEMANA! Hahaha I also can't believe you taped it...when you asked me to speak Spanish I got all nervous and it was awful, how about let's not show anyone that part? Haha. I'm a Little mad right now because I wrote a big letter to you guys that I was going to just type right up, and I forgot the notebook I wrote it in in the house. I'll send it over next week! I won't lie, I've been so super excited to get on here and email you, right after I got off of Skype I started looking forward to it... I felt so bad I just cried the whole time! I got really worried that you all thought that I was miserable and oh-so homesick, that I made you worry for me! Of course, I didn't want to cry, but seeing all the faces and hearing all the voices I love more than anything in the world all at the same time was overwhelming! I couldn't stop! I want you all to know that I am so super happy here, for real! They take such good care of me here, I can't even explain. I'm truly converting to this work, and I just love it so much. More of my thought-thoughts on the mish in general next week :) Ps, your Christmas Eve letters were the greatest in the world. THANK YOU AGAIN FOR ALL OF THE PACKAGE, THE LETTERS, EVERYTHING.

On Christmas, we went out and tried to contact people in the Street. There weren't too many to be found, but when we did have the chance to contact it was a super cool experience. To be able to say "Somos representantes de Jesucristo, y HOY estamos celebrando Su nacimiento" was so sweet. We felt like we should visit a single, older lady in the Ward, and turned out she was all alone - her daughter was working. Super glad we heeded that prompting. We couldn't exactly hand out all of our "He is the Gift" cards, because everyone was in their house pretty much the whole day of Christmas, but this hermana wanted tons to give out to people at work! So we gave her lots of them, and I'm 100% confident she'll hand them all out, because she's a definite "member missionary." To be honest, before my misión, I didn't realize that a large part of the missionary's job is to build the Ward. I'm loving trying to help strengthen the testimonies of members, menos activos, and non-member family-members alike.

This week was a bit difficult in general, I really don't like when we have Little breaks from the work for a few reasons: it's harder to complete our goals for the week, and when we're not serving it's easier to fall into thinking about home. I will admit I had a Little homesickness relapse, and that wasn't too fun. People are on vacation, and almost every scheduled lesson we had planned with new people (Street contacts), this week and last week, fell through. BUT. Saturday, we both felt prompted to visit Enrique again. And guess what? He's getting baptized, on January 11, with our other investigator Carolina. He had quite a few spiritual experiences in the past week, all pointing to Jesús Christ and baptism. He's not quite there as far as 'loving the ward' goes, but now he knows without a doubt that he wants to follow the example of Jesús Christ and be an active member of this Church. I'm seriously psyched. Other significant things this week - we are going to begin teaching the dad of a family in the Ward who hasn't accepted the missionaries in the past. This is pretty huge! This family has been going through a rough time - about a month ago, the 20-year-old son found out he had a brain tumor. We knew the family before, had visited them, and this was super sad for everyone to hear. He had a few surgeries, all went well, and he's back at home recovering, just like that. His brother, who's 15, is one of our "less-actives" that we're working on, and their dad isn't a member. Sincé this experience, they've been Reading the Book of Mormon as a family and they've all been at church every week. We visited them on the 27th, and the dad was there and wanting to talk about THE TEMPLE. We eased into a Little lesson on eternal families, and he was extremely interested. He Works a lot, but we're going to try to work around his Schedule and bring this family together for eternity. We're so happy, seriously. We found another family in the Ward also, inactive mom, non-member kids and husband. Super nice, super cool, and super open. I'm sad that it looks like I have only a few weeks left in this área, but I'm honestly way excited that I'll get to experience a whole new group of people, different scenery, etc. But, for now, I'm going to work like I'm NEVER going to leave Lomas Verdes. I love it here. I love you guys, more than any words I could ever say or write. MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS, MY LESUEURS. I'll see ya in a bit.

Beeeeeg Keeeees, Leeeeeetle Keeeees

Hermana LeSueur

Em in her Christmas Eve Jammies-- Kate and Lucy had the same ones at home to keep the tradition alive!

The same Advent Christmas Tree with pockets that I took on my mission.  We filled it with little fun and  practical trinkets for Emma and her companion for each day of December- they loved it!