Best Valentine's Day Ever

So first off I have an announcement: I officially know what it is like to have your hair freeze. My hair was still a little wet when we left the apartment this morning and it was 15 degrees and the wet part of my hair froze on the walk from the apartment to the car. I'm definitely not used to that haha.

This week was good. We have a 10-year-old investigator Andy who is getting baptized on Sunday! His 13-year-old sister Maggie got baptized back in November, and now Andy feels like he is ready too! He has seen how happy Maggie is that she has made that decision and now he is following her example.

We have this other really cool investigator Janet. She is from Mexico and she is so smart! When we were teaching her about baptism she said "I was baptized Catholic when I was a baby, but that wasn't even my decision. And then a few years ago I was baptized into a Christian church, but I don't really feel like it counted because they didn't have any authority" I was just amazed that she had that insight about how priesthood authority is needed to baptize when she hadn't even had the Restoration Lesson yet! That is one of the main points of the Restoration lesson- how the proper priesthood authority was lost during the apostasy and how that authority has been restored and is necessary to baptize. So then we taught her the Restoration a few days later and she understood it so well! When we taught her the part about the apostasy and she said "So that must be why there are so many churches right?" There are so many people that just don't get it but she does!

Tuesday I went on exchange with Sister Shiman, a sister training leader here. For dinner we went to this place called Eat a Pita: Kosher Israeli Grill. Everyone there was an Orthodox Jew except for the two of us and a random Mexican worker haha. I still can't get over how many Jews there are in Lakewood!

Saturday was the best Valentine's Day ever! My Carlos and Sebastian from Union City went to the temple to do baptisms for the first time, and I got permission to go! Sister Daines and I drove up to Union City, where we met up with Sister Stone and her new companion Sister Parker. Sister Daines joined Sister Parker for the day to cover their area, and Sister Stone and I got to go to the Manhattan Temple with Carlos, Sebastian, the bishop, and two other members of the Union City ward. Carlos had done some family history work and got some family names (including his father) that he wanted to do baptisms for. All our group did confirmations, and Carlos and Sebastian did baptisms. It was so special to get to watch that! They loved their first time in the temple! It's just so amazing how truly prepared they were for the Gospel and that they were able to accept it so quickly when we found them in December. Now they already have temple recommends! <3

Yesterday wasn't quite as exciting. Church was cancelled because it was so cold and there was so much snow. So we stayed inside most of the day watching missionary videos and reading Ensigns.

I love being a missionary! Miracles are real!

<3 Hermana Harris