January 16th

BUENAS!! Hello family!

Well I have completely forgotten what happened this week, I am completely drawing a blank. It went by sooo incredibly fast! I cant even believe that we are half way through January already. What is this world coming to? My new comp is still super cool. I like her a lot. We are super excited because we one of our investigators is getting BAPTISED!!! The 28th of this month. Its actually quite a good story though. Ok, so this is what happened. This ladies name is Maria (of course) and she has been taught by the missionaries for about 5 years and has never gotten baptized. We have also been teaching her every since we got here in August. We didnt want to drop her because she has such a strong testimony. She is the mom of the 3 teenagers that we baptized in November. She bears her testimony to us all the time about how she knows that this is the only true church. She is the one that went to the temple and she told us yesterday that that is why she will not consider any other church because the feeling that she felt in the temple, she will never forget. So we decided that we were going to challenged her to be baptized one more time and if she said no, we were going to drop her. So we challenged her and she said no but that she would in a little while. So I said "no! you have been saying that to us for 6 months now." And we told her that she needed to pray right then and there and ask God if the 28th of this month is when he wanted her to get baptized. Of course she refused as they all do at first but then we convinced her to pray. So she said a prayer and asked in her prayer if she should get baptized and RIGHT after her prayer, she said "youre right, hermanas, I have waited long enough, I need to get baptized." She cried and after that, her countenance completely changed, she was so happy! The next day she came to church and we went to visit her at her house and when we walked up, she was on her front porch reading the book of mormon with her kids. What a lovely sight to see. I love being a missionary!!

Here is a good cultural story for you. So there is this lady in our ward named Gloria and she is super super duper sick. Like on her death bed. No one knows what she has. Even the doctors dont know. She is just sick, cant sleep, even one minute and her left arm moves by itself, its very strange. But anyways, yesterday, a tons of ladies in relief society and us went to go visit her. All the ladies were talking about what she has and one lady said "well the reason why her left arm is doing that is because she got mad. You have nerve problems if you get mad and then take a shower after. Im sure she did that and that is why she is sick. I giggled thinking that surely everyone would think that was an outrageous statement when all of the other ladies started talking about how it was true and that she must have gotten mad. Then Glorias family started saying, yeah, she got mad a few months ago because my dad was drinking and that is why she is going to die. Thats what all the doctors tell her too and that there is nothing that she can do about it cause its just to late. She already made the mistake by getting mad and then taking a shower after. Ohhhh dear. I just love it here. They believe the most outrageous things.

Well, I cant really think of anything else to tell you so I will end the letter now. But I do love you all very very much and miss you tons! Thank you for all your letters. They make me LIFE! Until next week!

Love, Hermana Kami Alyse Alston