Merry Christmas

Family,

Merry Christmas to you as well! It is crazy how Christmas is already here. It feels like yesterday I was just leaving, it's crazy how time flies when you are having fun. What is with all these deaths/accidents happening? Geez that is just crazy... Give my condolences as well. I still haven't received the Christmas package yet, but I will/should get it tomorrow at Christmas Conference in San Antonio. It's gonna be a good day tomorrow as the whole mission is getting together. I don't know really what time I will be calling on Christmas. Maybe at like 2 our time? I will try and push it back as far as I can so that I can talk to everyone at 4, but that would be 5 my time and so that might be tough to do. I'm just not promising anything.

Well this week has been great. We have so many things going on I don't even know where to begin.

I'm loving the work in this area. I love speaking Spanish even though I can't speak a lot. I'm learning a ton of how to speak and what to say and most importantly, to be patient. This last week we have had a great week. We taught 21 other lessons and got 10 new investigators. I hate talking about numbers but it really begins with numbers and it helps us track our progression. We have so many people in our pool and a lot of people are listening to us, now the tough part is to get them to act and come to church.

Linda and Limary are our primary people to get baptized. They have been taught for a long time and are probably the most elect people I have seen, even though I haven't' really met them because they are busy but they have a strong testimony of the church. They are going to get baptized on January 2. So we are excited for them.

We also are teaching Victor. He has been taught and he is coming to church every week. He was supposed to get baptized this upcoming Sunday but he isn't ready. So we are probably going to do it on the 2nd of January as well.

And then there is Joaquin Jr. He is a 9 year old that his mom just got baptized in September. So he is guaranteed as well.

So right there we are guaranteed 4 baptized this transfer. But we are not stopping there.

Like I said earlier we have had a lot of things happen this last week. On Tuesday night and Wednesday all day we had splits with the Zone Leaders from San Antonio. They were up here for a leadership training and so they split with us. Those two days were great. I was in a three some with Elder Riley and Elder Goseland and my companion was with Elder Berg. We did work! In those two days we invited 2 people to be baptized and they both said yes. One of them was Daisy. She had been taught by Elder Sherwood and his last companion but she never acted and so she was dropped. Well we stopped by and read from the Book of Mormon with her and she loved it. When we invited her to be baptized she was excited and instantly said yes. But she didn't make it to church and so she doesn't have a baptismal date anymore. The other one was Juana. Elder Sherwood and Elder Berg taught her and also invited her to be baptized and she accepted for the 9th of January. We went back to teach her the other day but she wasn't there.

One thing I find very frustrating about the Hispanic culture is that they can be very flaky. They are super nice and say, "Yeah, come back" but when we do they aren't there or when we call them the night before they say, "Yes I will be there" and they aren't. It is really tough when we have return appointments scheduled and we are excited to go teach them but then they just aren't there. That has happened a lot this week, but for some reason we still had an amazing week because we are finding people like crazy. We just need to help them get a testimony and enter into the waters of baptism.

Last night we taught this guy named Francisco. He was just a guy that Elder Sherwood and Berg knocked into and said "Come back", so we didn't think anything about it. Well we went back last night and taught him the Gospel and how it will affect his life. It was a great lesson and the Spirit was there very strongly and he felt it. We invited him to be baptized and he said yes and accepted the date of 9th of January. It is great working here, I'm really enjoying the work!

This area is great as well. This last week we found the most ghetto spot ever. We have been in there twice and both times we just feel out of place. It is an apartment complex that is just ghetto! It is great though!

The work is going well here in the Riverside Ward! We are just going to baptize this whole area!Have a good week and a great Christmas without me!

Love you all!

Elder Harvey