SO MANY CHRISTMAS MIRACLES!!! : (Week 58)

Feliz Navidad y prospero ano!! :)

I hope you all had a great Christmas!  I sure did!  I loved talking to my family!  They are all doing great, and it was fun getting caught up with their life. I am grateful though that they didn't talk too much about me going home.  I look forward to it, but I don't want to go YET. haha :)  I have a lot of work still to do! :)  I found out that one of my other classmates is getting engaged and one of them is pregnant! It is exciting but at the same time it is weird because they are so young!  But I am so happy for them! :)  I also got a new dog! haha She is really cute.  Her name is Snowball!

So this past week has been full of miracles!  I don't know where to begin!!!! I guess I will just take it day by day! :)

MONDAY: As a zone on Monday, we went down to Balboa Island and went caroling!  It was really fun!  It was barely sprinkling and there were A LOT of people!  I was asked to conduct the music, and I really don't know how to do it, but I had barely learned how a few weeks before, so that was a blessing.  I messed up a few times, but no one was really paying attention anyways!  I finally got the hang of it pretty quick! :)  A lot of people would stop to listen and a lot of them even took pictures or recorded us singing from their phones!  Some people even cried because they felt the Spirit!  It was a lot of fun!  We decided that we would do it again, but on Christmas Eve! :)

TUESDAY: There is a RC/LA member in our ward who is very sick and has a hard time coming to church.  We went by to visit her for a little bit, and helped her out by rearranging her room.  She is a very beautiful artist, and she paints on stones.  Her work is AMAZING! Anyways, we had the Westpark Elders come and help us move some stuff.  We are planning on going over again and helpingher because she still has A LOT of stuff.  We had a window later that day and it was really fun because it was raining! :)  We talked to a lot of people and we handed out 7 Book of Mormons.  We talked to two guys who seemed interested in learning more. :)  Their names are Birzhan (Russian?) and Akira (Japanese).  We gave their info to Elder Summers since he speaks Japanese. :)  Hope that goes well! :)

WEDNESDAY: We had District meeting and we talked a lot about contacting.  I love trainings on contacting, because it something we can always improve on! :)  After District meeting Hna. Garcia and I went on a little mini exchange to go teach an investigator that the College Park elders have been *trying* to teach.  (They can't speak Spanish, but bless their hearts for their efforts! :)) She is from Mexico.  Her name is Ruby.  She has been investigatoing for a long while.  Elder Weiler originally started teaching her in Spanish, then Elder Fuell, and now us!  We called the Anaheim Spanish elders to see why we are the ones teaching them, and not them, because technically we shouldn't be the ones teaching them!  But they informed us that she doesn't want to be in a Spanish ward, she wants to be in an English ward for her kids.  So we are just going to continue helping the elders with the lessons.  :)  it was a good lesson, but she had a hard time understanding a lot of what we shared.  We are going to have to teach point by point with her for her to understand more.  After teaching Ruby, Hna. Garcia and I went to another investigator lesson and we met Gamal.  He is Persian.  He is really nice, and his English is really good!  He is being prepared to be baptized by the end of January.  We taught him the 10 commandments and he understood it really well!  He shared with us his conversion story to Christianity, and told us he read the Bible 5 times in 3 months!  WHATTTT?!  That is true dedication my friend! :)  Later that night we had our first lesson with our new investigators Guiti and Helena! :)  We stopped by and they were so kind to us!  They had a bunch of Persian sweets and pastries for us too. We talked a little bit and got to know them a little bit better.  We taught them the first point in Preach My Gospel, (God Our Loving Heavenly Father) and had a great discussion.  Helena asks A LOT of questions.  She was asking questions about the Atonement, the Plan, Joseph Smith, everything.  We promised her that we would answer her questions very soon, but we would have to take it step by step.  Guiti's other daughter was there too, and she seemed really interested.  She seemed really open to the things we taught.  Guiti asked us how they could become members and Sister Jensen and I looked at each other and smiled.  sister Jensen explained what baptism is and extended the invitation for them to get baptized if they found that what we taught was true!...
THEY SAID YES!!!!  :D
WOOHOO! :D
We talked a little bit more and had a great night!  They are so solid!  They are AMAZING! :)

THURSDAY: CHRISTMAS EVE!!!! :) Christmas Eve was so much fun! :)  We went caroling again as a zone and we did it for a few hours!  A lot of people were out and about and so many people asked us to sing for them!  There was this one lady named Carol who was sitting on a bench with her dog all alone and we stopped and asked her if she wanted us to sing to her.  She requested Silent Night and we sang it to her and it was as if the Heavens opened up and the Angels were singing!  She began to cry!  It was awesome! :)  There was this one guy who was standing next to me as I was conducting and his family was requesting so many great songs!  After we sang them, he shook my hand and placed $40 in my hand!  I tried to give it back, but he refused!  I was so surprised!!! I am going to donate it as a fast offering since we cannot pay tithing.  But it was really awesome! :)  Later that night we spent it with the Armstrongs! We love the Armstrongs! :)  Brother Armstrong is our WML, and we just adore their family!  We had a lot of fun and we had such great food!  I was SO full!  Then the whole family opened presents and it was really fun to see all the kids get all excited about that. :)  sister Armstrong gave us a beautiful gift!  Both Sister Jensen and I got a necklace with a little charm that is in the shape of California.  It is so beautiful!  We absolutely love them! :)  After everyone opened their gifts, I asked if I could share a family tradition that we do for Christmas Eve with their family, and they were kind enough to let me do it.  In the Duncan family, my grandpa always reads the book, "The Littlest Angel"  which is one of my FAVORITE stories.  I always cry when I read it because it is just SO good.  Brother Blume (Sister Armstrong's brother) read the story and everyone sat down and listened.  I couldn't help but cry again because it brought back wonderful memories of being with my family for the holidays.  Plus, it is just such a great book! :)  It was a great Christmas Eve, and we had a lot of fun! :)

FRIDAY: CHRISTMASSSS!!!!!! :D :)  We went over the Armstrong's again for breakfast and to Skype our families.  We had French toast!  I LOVE FRENCH TOAST! ;D Skyping with my family was so much funa nd I really enjoyed it.  I love them so much! :)  After Skyping and taking care of all of that fun stuff, we went back home and got ready for the rest of the day and then headed off to our dinner.  We had dinner with the Giolas family and it was really good. :) Then we went to the Stake Center for a fun little Zone activity. :)

SATURDAY: My mom's birthday!  Happy birthday mom! :)  Yay!  We had a window, and it was quite successful, literally as we were about to leave we contacted a guy at a bus stop and started talking to him.  He seems interested!  We gave him our info and we hope to start teaching him soon!:) 

SUNDAY: THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!!! Guiti and Helena came to church again and it was amazing like last time!  She just gobbled it up!  After church, Guiti told me that we remind her of her oldest daughter, and she asked if she could be like our mom!  AWWWWWWW!!! MI CORAZON! X'D  Later that night we stopped by their house to "drop off a Christmas present"  *Wink wink* We ended up teaching them the Restoration.  It was an AMAZING lesson.  I wish I could tell you all that happened, but I don't have a lot of time left! :(  But anyways, long story short, we invited them to be baptized on January 31, and they accepted! :D YAYYYYY!  They are getting baptized! :)  We are so so so happy, and they are so so so  excited! :)

Yay miracles!  I love this work! :)

Hope you all have a very safe week and happy new year! :)

Con mucho amor,
Hna. Rachel Duncan