Feliz Navidad!

Hey family,

It was fun hearing your voices for a wee bit, seeing Janes beautiful teeth, ben and beccas beautiful faces, and mom and dads barely wrinkled faces.  Im excited to talk to the whole fam on Wednesday in the morning.

Well this has been a pretty nutty week. Were still trying to get used to working in the huge area that we have and are facing lots of problems knowing how to not waste time when we have so much to do in so little time and such a large space. Hermana Rodriguez has had some crazy blisters in her feet and we have both been sick for a couple of days (i miss my neti pot dad) but were both getting better and Im praying that the blisters can heal in her feet. We have been working on finding more families and Im really excited for this upcoming week to make goals to be more effective with our time.

Update on Yelba and Cesar.....we visted Yelba practically every day this week and she is really excited about her baptism. She also went to the Christmas party and was making friends so we were excited about that. Cesar has been out of town all week but we finally met with him with the district leader on Friday. The district leader spoke to him to work with him with his fears of getting married and Cesar made the goal to get married and baptized this Saturday. Were really excited for them and are going to work hard this week with them to make sure they make their goal. All of his family is Catholic but they have all mentioned to him how they have seen a change in him since he started studying and learning with us and have told him to continue in whatever he is doing. It is so neat to see people change and even neater when they and their family recognize the changes that the restored gospel of Jesus Christ can make in their life. 

Our zone did a really cool activity  Friday,  Saturday, and Sunday night. They set up a projector in the park with a video of the birth of Jesus Christ and had a table with pamphlets and free videos. We helped out last night along with all of the missionaries in the zone and in total about 300 families were contacted throughout the 3 days. I love missionary team work. Another great idea that missionaries have thought of in our mission is setting up a table that says free family photos. We take their photo and then ask for their direction to visit them and give them their photo. Perfect excuse to visit them at their house :).

To answer some of mom and dads questions.........we all thought i was senior comp. with H. Chinchilla but turns out I wasnt and she was but we shared the responsibility which was really nice. H. Rodriguez is senior comp. To make you feel better mom lots of ppl got packages at the Christmas party but definitely not everyone. At our Christmas celebration we played sports the whole morning and then had a catered lunch and had a devotional where every zone sang a Christmas hymn and H. and Pres. Arredondo sang a duet together. All of the missionaries were there so it was really fun to see everyone. 

I was not nervous when we were detained, just frustrated. I feel safe in Ocotal. It is SO different than Nagarote. People dont really know how to give their directions because they dont know where is north, south, east west sometimes so we have had some challenges with finding people. Im learning tol ove maps like mom already does because it helps us not get lost as much. 

I really know that this gospel is true and that Jesus Christ, our Savior, was born to live and die for us and to bring us back to our Father in Heaven. Repentance is real and Im so grateful we have the promise that if we do this we can live with our families forever. I sure love you all more than you know. Have a wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas! 

FELIZ NAVIDAD!

Anne