Happy New Year! It's so great to hear from you! It sounds like Jake had a fun birthday (electric boots? that's awesome!). I'm sure Alex's talk was great as well, he'll be a good and fun missionary. His companions will love him.
We had to be back inside our apartments at 7pm on New Years Eve to stay safe and stay away from all the parties and drinking and such. We as roommates had plans to build forts and do dumb things but then we ended up having like a 2 hour scripture study/discussion haha we are such missionaries... we didn't build our forts or anything. We literally studied for 2 extra hours together. And we enjoyed it! We could hear the fireworks from our apartment but we didn't see any.
New Years Day was the worst day ever... hopefully it's not a foreshadow for the rest of the year. As a missionary you see and hear a lot of things that you don't want to ever see in your life, it's sad and discouraging at times. But, that's the reason why we're here, is to share the Gospel with everyone and turn this world into a better place.
On a brighter note, the baptism of Mayolo was beautiful :) I have pictures and will be sending home my memory card either this week or next week. I have tried several times to email pictures home but I have to install some kind of software (the cd that came with my camera) in order to upload any pictures by USB, which I can't do at the library haha. Sorry! Maybe I'll go get an adapter at Walmart today or something that will fix the problem. But anyways, Mayolo and his son got baptized on Saturday and the Spirit was so strong. He didn't end up baptizing his son, I'm not sure why, but they were both still baptized that day :). The next day they had their confirmations at church and their blessings were beautiful. We have baptismal dates with a few of our other investigators that we're working with; it's so great to see the light in people's eyes when they learn about the Gospel. We brought our investigator Gabriel to a different baptism on Saturday as well, and afterwards we asked him what he was thinking and how he felt. He said "I just can't describe it. It's so different from everything that I know, but I feel good. I cannot deny that this is true." :) Me either Gabriel! I cannot deny that this is true!
We've been learning about family history a lot lately and have been sharing it with others. If you get a chance, could you send me some family history stories? I would love that, and it's fun to share stories with other people about our heritage and where we come from. It encourages and excites them to do their own geneology.
Random side note- if you check out the Vista 4 Ward facebook page it has a couple other pictures of me on it that you can check out. They have a whole photo album set aside on there for all of the missionaries that serve in their ward.
I read a scripture this morning that I want to share. It's 3 Nephi 13:32 and it says "For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things." It's such a simple yet comforting verse. The Lord knows you and knows what you need, and he will help you.
Well I hope you all have a great week!! I'm still working on replying to everyone's letters. Be patient with me :). Good luck with school starting up again! Have fun and be safe these last few days of vacation. I love and miss you all very much.
Love,
Hermana Lacey Inman
Hermana Lacey Inman
