Simple Joys‏

From:	Callie Horton (callie.horton@myldsmail.net)
Sent:	Mon 12/09/13 8:54 AM

Hola!

 

Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes and everything! My birthday was wonderful! Hermana Bingham surprised me with Olive Garden for lunch and we went with some other Sister missionaries. Later we went over to Veronica's to teach her and Claudia and watch the Testaments, and then they totally just threw this little fiesta for me! They're the greatest! It was complete with chips, cheese dip, party hats and toys, and them making me put my face in the cake to take the first bite! They are the sweetest ever. And then the ward mission leader and his wife had us and the other missionaries in the ward over to have cake and ice cream! It was lots of fun! They are some of my favorite people ever! It was definitely a birthday to remember! And now we have 3 cakes at our house. We are getting chubby.

 

I'm not sure I've talked about him before, but our investigator Jose is so awesome! He is related to a recent convert in my last ward, and before a couple days ago, he seemed interested, but not extremely into it. But the other day we went over and asked him about his reading and HOLY COW! We had him read in Alma 32 and I have never seen someone enjoy that chapter the way he did. He just started getting so excited and talking about how everyone thinks that you have to know everything before baptism, but the thing he learned from that chapter is that you don't! How he got that on his own, I don't know, but it was amazing! He was getting so excited and so then us and our member present (who doesn't even speak Spanish) was getting so excited! I didn't realize how much we were all freaking out about it until we had stopped talking about it haha. But he is now thinking about a baptismal date! We are so excited because all of our investigators are having a hard time committing to a baptismal date, but he is so close!

 

Enrique and his wife Ruth are doing great! We reviewed the restoration with them the other day and watched the restoration DVD and it was so powerful. The Spirit was just so strong! Enrique was even crying because of how strong the Spirit was! We always ask them if they really want to know if these things are true, and he always says, "Of course. That's why we let you keep coming back." We have high hopes that they will commit to a baptismal date soon!

 

There was a pretty big storm here yesterday. Church was almost cancelled. I wish there would have been some snow involved, but unfortunately we didn't get any in Mechanicsville. But we couldn't go to a couple of our lessons last night that were kind of far away. We now had an open night and we weren't quite sure what we needed to be doing with our time. We don't really do less active work in this ward, so we asked the other sisters if there was anyone that they wanted us to visit. They told us the name of a lady that they had never met before. So we went and talked with her and she is awesome! She said she probably won't be coming back to church, but we were able to go and share a thought with her and help her feel loved. We later came to find out that she is very very rarely home and it was lucky that we caught her! It was such a simple simple thing, but we both knew that we needed to be there that night. I am just so extremely amazed at God's amazing plans. He really has a plan for EVERYTHING. We needed to be there. Even if she doesn't come back to church any time soon, we needed to be there to share our message with her. More and more lately I am seeing that plans falling through isn't always a horrible thing. Most of the time, God just needs us somewhere else.

 

I am so extremely grateful for this wonderful Christmas season! One thing I loved from the broadcast last night was when President Monson said something like, "Don't forget the simple joys that come from remembering Christ's birth." Christmas is full of lots of simple joys. I am so grateful to be able to go out and help people know Christ a little bit more. Being a missionary is so great!

 

I hope you all have a wonderful week!! I love you all!!

 

And now I close mine epistle. I am Hermana Horton.