Week Seventy Eight - New Companion and Completing a Sister Mission!

New companions!  David and Elder Berardy!

Dinner with investigators! 

Dinner with investigators! 

Hello Fam!  

   This week was FREEEEEZING!!!  And I don't really have anything to share with you other than transfers.  So yeah, transfers were tuesday and it was wack!  There was a chapel stuffed full of missionaries, and everybody there was getting a new companion, and nobody knew who their new companion was going to be.  So it was very exciting, but quite nerve-racking as well, as you could probably imagine.  They announced the new companionships using a slideshow, going zone by zone, and your picture would pop up with your new companion next to it.  And my new companion is Elder Berardy!  He came to the mission with my last companion, Elder Alkonis, and was trained by one of my old companions, Elder Patton, in my last area, McKinney.  So we get to talk about the good ol' days in McKinney all the time and it is fun.  Elder Berardy has decent Spanish, but what I love about him is that he is super motivated to learn and master spanish, and he has no shame of talking with everybody.  You can still tell that he is pretty new to the mission lifestyle, but he is learning quickly and he is a great missionary!  He is always super happy and loves to be around people.  Elder Berardy is pretty much a stud.  Half American, half Filipino, and born and raised in Hawaii.  He surfs and cliff dives and has basically lived the dream life for the last 22 years.  He has already graduated from BYU Hawaii, and he has a degree in exercise science, or something along those lines.  He loves sports, is super laid back, and had 1300 followers on Instagram!  So that's my companion.  I think we are going to get along quite well together.  

   On Wednesday, the Hermanas that I came out with went home.  That's sooo crazy!  I have now completed a sister mission.  Hard to believe.  

  

This week was miserably cold and difficult, but we did have some good things happen.  We had a zone conference, where we got together with three other zones and heard some uplifting words and inspiring trainings.  Good stuff!  

We are teaching a family that is super Christian and love love love their Bible.  We have spent a lot of time trying to help them understand and accept the Book of Mormon, and I think we are making some progress.  They really really like us, and they had us over for dinner on Thursday, and they wanted to take pictures with us afterward.  Ha!  After dinner we had to go to a branch activity, but we didn't have a ride.  They then offered to take us, and their plan was to just drop us off at the Church, but we talked them into coming in for just 5 minutes.  So we walked them around the building and explained a few things to them, and we were about to walk into the cultural hall where the activity and the members were, but they didn't want to go in.  But right in that moment, branch president found us and got to talk to this for a minute.  Then, as we were walking them to the door, another member came out and started talking to them, and then another, and somehow the members convinced them to come into the cultural hall and stay for an entire hour!  I love members : ) The activity was a family history activity, and Angelica came and found out that her father was married 11 times!  So that was kind of interesting. But other than that one family, we are trying to work with a few part-member families, but it has been difficult to get any real commitment out of them.  Typical.  But things are going alright, and it should warm up a little bit this week.  Just doing my best to stay positive and do all that is asked of me.

-we haven't a Christmas tree, that I am aware of.  

-not sure why they changed the way transfers are done, but I think they are going to continue doing it that way, but try to get the calls to us a night or two earlier. 

-still district leader : )

-I have not yet bought any new bedding, not sure if I will.

-I have not been warm enough, but I don't know what else I could do to be warmer.  I do wear the long johns that you sent me, and I bought another pair this week.  They help.

-I haven't thought of anything else I need for Christmas.

Thanks for the updates on things back home.  I miss you all and love you to Kolob and back!