A Very Merry Christmas

Hi everyone!!

SO MUCH TO SAY! I'm warning you ahead of time this is might end up being a pretty long email, so skimming might be required if you don't set aside time specifically to read Hermana Tuttle's weekly novel.

Christmas Eve: A lot of eating. Between 1.50€ Kebabs with the Elders to Medioenda with the Lopes Family to dinner with Vanessa (the relief society president) we ate very well. We were worried about how we were going to fit everything in without offending anyone but everything worked out and we had a great day. Vanessa asked Hermana Durham to sing White Christmas for her mom who was in town from France. Afterwards we went home and we, along with Hermana Scoville and Hermana Liu moved all of our mattresses into the front room and we read Christmas stories until we had to go to sleep.

Christmas: We ate lunch with the Lopes family. The two daughters made us little cards and it was super sweet. I love that family so much. We went straight from there to the house of a member to eat. Luckily we were with the Elders so we didn't have to eat a lot otherwise I think I would have exploded. That night we were invited over to another member’s house to Skype with our families and eat. It was so fun to see you guys. I can't believe how different you look! I feel like time should have paused for you guys when I left. Maryann the member who is from Arizona but married a Spaniard made us chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, and apple crisp it was delicious!

The next day: We had to get up at 4 to catch my flight to the islands. My voice was completely gone! I spent the day in Palma de Mallorca and even though I could barely talk I loved it and we say so many miracles. The area is kind of slow right now so we didn't have a single appointment planned and yet before lunch we had had 2 member presents and 2 other lessons. After lunch we contacted for a while, I think people just pitied my voice or maybe they thought it sounded cool because we ended up getting a lot of numbers but we felt that our time would be better spent passing by people. We ran home real quick to grab a menos activos sheet. 

While Hermana Ward was figuring that out I went through the Potential Investigators sheet and just called people. I came to a man named Ronaldo. He said that he would love to meet with us but that we had to promise one thing...that we wouldn't be scared when we saw him. I was surprised by that and asked what he meant, he said that he had been drinking. I made sure he knew what our purpose was, he assured us that he did so we headed out to go meet him. We sat down and he told us that he knew we were sent from God. He told us that he had been having a really hard couple of months and he had started drinking more and more to numb him. He said that he had had the worst day of his life and just kept asking how we knew to call him. We had a great lesson with him. He said he could feel a peace in his heart that he had never felt we explained to him that that was the spirit. We invited him to be baptized and he accepted a date for the 11th of January. He said that he was going to read the Book of Mormon and as we walked away he was hugging his Book of Mormon and said "I am going to sleep like this tonight." It was so powerful and perfect. We walked away with tears in our eyes. The spirit was so strong and it broke my heart to think that I might never see him again. That's the amazing thing about being a missionary. You feel an immediate love for people that you have never met before!

(P.S. in case you cared I only ended up being in the islands for 1 day instead of 3 because 4 of us got sick. I got a blessing though and now feeling super great so no worries.)

Second Miracle: So we had been a little worried about an investigator named Yuli. She comes to church every sunday, she is super prepared but she is petrified by water. The zone had set a goal that every companionship baptizes this month and we knew that goal was set by inspiration so we prayed and by an absolute miracle she accepted to be baptized this last Saturday. She was still terrified so the elders gave her a blessing Friday night and she was baptized the next day. It was a tender moment of my mission seeing someone overcome such a paralyzing fear for something she knew to be right. She is an amazing woman and she is going to be an amazing member.

And finally: This week Kofi from Ghana is getting baptized and we could not be more excited. He is so great that he is inviting his friends to come to church (he says our ward needs more Africans, he's the best).

Sorry this was forever long but this really was a week of miracles. I feel so blessed!

Con Mucho Amor,

Hermana Tuttle