Feliz Ano Nuevo!

Hey everyone and Happy New Year!!

 

We didn't do much for New Year's Eve. The ward had a party, but it started at 8pm which in Hispanic time really means people didn't show up until 10pm ... which is a problem when we have to be in the apartment at 9pm.  We just went to bed early that night... pretty sure that was the first New Year's Eve in 10 years that I didn't stay up until midnight. Also it was weird to think that the huge Times Square New Year's party with over a million people was just three miles away across the Hudson river... meanwhile, we went to bed at 10pm. Because that's what champions do.

 

So I just can't stop talking about how amazing Carlos is. We had a lesson with him on Wednesday, 3 days after he was baptized, and he was asking us how to pay tithing and who to give it to. So we brought him a tithing envelope the next time we saw him and then yesterday he brought his envelope to church to give it to the bishopric. First Sunday as a member and already willingly paying tithing! This guy is awesome!

 

Also our New Year's miracle was that Carlos texted us and told us that his 16-year-old son Sebastian wants to get baptized. He really enjoyed his dad's baptism and felt the Spirit and knew that he wanted to follow his example. So we put Sebastian on date for next Sunday the 11th! It is perfect timing because Carlos is going to receive the priesthood in church that day, so he can baptize Sebastian that same day after church :)

 

Carlos was confirmed yesterday in Sacrament Meeting! He showed up early and had his white shirt and tie :) He was so happy!!

 

So apparently there was a good amount of snow on the ground in Temecula this week... I just find it very strange that there was more snow back at home in sunny California than there was here. We only had one day of thin, wet snow this week. It hasn't even been bad!

 

Last but not least, let me tell y'all about Gary. On Sister Stone's first Saturday here back in November, we were at the church for a Relief Society activity and helped clean up afterwards. We were sitting in the foyer of the church when suddenly a confused-looking white guy in his 50's walks in, looks around wide-eyed for a few seconds, and then says "I was wondering if you have any literature?" So of course we were thrilled (although slightly confused) and immediately gave him a Book of Mormon, sat him down, and started teaching him about it. He is probably one of the only white people that lives in Union City (he grew up here and just never left) and he doesn't speak Spanish so we gave his information to the English-speaking sisters and they tried to get him to come to the English-speaking ward in Jersey City. But Gary is stubborn and insisted that his Spanish was sufficient enough to attend a Spanish ward, so he came to church in Union City for about a month (but the missionaries had to sit by him and translate everything because his Spanish really is not sufficient). Eventually the English sisters finally convinced him to go to the Jersey City ward so he can actually understand what's going on. They asked him to be baptized and he said yes but not until his birthday, March 18th, because he "wants to have two things to celebrate that day." So we are not teaching him but we see him walking around Union City all the time (he stand out pretty easily because white guy+ Union City=strange). We ran into him on the street three times this week. And he's always reminding us that he's "still penciled in for March 18th." He's funny!

 

I hope everyone is doing great. The work is going super well here in Union City. I am almost for sure getting transferred out of this area after I finish training Sister Stone in 2 more weeks. I really have fallen in love with this place and this ward and it's gonna be so hard for me to leave it... I'm trying to really make the most of the time I have left here.

 

<3 Hermana Harris