December 2

Dear Family and Friends,

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and break from school. I had a good but somewhat crazy week.

Last Monday was a pretty boring P-day. All we did was write letters and relax. Hopefully we'll do something more exciting today. Haha.

Tuesday was a great day. We visited our investigator Tisha. She is so prepared for the gospel. She went out of town for Thanksgiving, but she's excited to meet with us again when she gets back. There is a new church building that opens up right by her house in a few weeks, and she's really excited about being able to walk to church. I really think she'll love the gospel and we're excited to really start teaching her.

We also met with Hope, our recent convert Tuesday night. She's awesome as well. She is loving the gospel and doing a great job of keeping Christ at the center of her life. She's got a busy life, but she knows that making time for reading her scriptures and going to church will make it less hectic.

Wednesday was unfortunately a sick day. I had been coughing for several days and had almost completely lost my voice, so the mission nurse sent me to the urgent care. It turns out I had bronchitis, so we had to stay inside the rest of that day and most of the day Thursday.

Thanksgiving was good. Even though we couldn't be out all day we still got to have 3 different meals. One family fed us breakfast, which was great. They had a ton of food and sent us home with lots of leftovers. And then we had 2 dinners as well. Both were really good, but neither had turkey or pumpkin pie. It just didn't feel quite like Thanksgiving without it.

Saturday was a really fun day. We got to help one of the families in the ward put up their Christmas tree, which definitely helped get me more excited about Christmas. It just doesn't seem possible that Christmas is so close. It's too warm outside and the grass is green! But lots of people decorate their houses here, so there are a lot of lights up. We got some lights for our house from one of the members that lives a few houses down from us. We put them up in our room, which is really fun.

And then yesterday was great too. We had church as usual, and then we met with our investigator Bethany. She is seriously so amazing. She's going to be baptized on January 4, and is so excited about it. She's already been going to church for a year and loves The Book of Mormon. I really feel like I'm going to learn more from her than she will from me. And we're going to go to the Mesa temple next week to see the Christmas lights with her. I'm excited about it.

Other than that, it was a pretty normal week. Just working hard to stay busy and get to know the people in this neighborhood. I love being out here and I especially love it during the holiday season.

I was reminded this week by my grandma of the real meaning of Christmas. I want to share something with you that she shared with me. She said that Santa's Christmas only last 24 hours, but the Savior's birth had eternal consequences. It is only because of the Savior and his atoning sacrifice that we are able to be happy in this life and return to live with our Heavenly Father again in the next. His birth is one of the greatest events in the history of the world, and I am so grateful that we have a holiday dedicated to celebrating it.

I hope you all have a great week. Love and miss you all!

Love always,
Baylee