"Did you know it's cold outside?"

Well, I know that Christmas is over but Merry Christmas on last time! We are still our caroling at least until the new year. But caroling is a lot cooler now (literally and figuratively) because it's snowing! On the 26th it started dumping snow and church was even canceled, which is really kind of a bummer since we had like 4 people we were pretty sure were going to go but what can you do? El Paso can hardly handle the rain so the whole city pretty much shut down, which was nice for us. People had nowhere to go which means that they are home! They're so funny though, they always say "Did you know it's cold outside?" Oh yeah? I didn't know that... 

So, the exciting news, Charles is on bap date! He should be getting baptized February 22nd and we have a word of wisdom plan for him and everything! It's even more exciting because the last time we really talking to him about it in detail he said maybe in a few years! So February is a pretty good improvement! We also talked to Judi about picking a date to get baptized on as well so she should be getting going here as well! Yay! And we got to see Ron and Teresa and we might get to help them with their remodeling soon. I was really glad we were able to see them again after so long. They need to get themselves to church! 

This Christmas Eve we had a Christmas miracle! They mail that they said we weren't going to get until January came on Christmas Eve! So it wasn't cancelled ha ha. We also got to pretend to be President Monson again this year and visited all of the single/lonely people in the ward. Mostly old people but a few Sisters whose husbands are deployed. It was really good though. One older sister we went to go see when we showed up said "Before you got here I was literally just praying that someone would come by." So that was pretty cool to hear. And lots of people told us that our coming meant a lot. It was a good way to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas. And all of our Hispanic friend invited us to party with them on Christmas Eve and have pasole and tamalies and all of our Caucasian friend were out of town because White people don't like El Paso ha ha. 

Also, we had a real Christmas miracle when we were caroling the other day. The lady that opened the door started crying and told us she had been feeling so down because people haven't been focusing on Christ. She said that she is looking for a place to go to church and that we should come back. So that was really cool. 

By the way, I totally had an insight this week that applies to what I know all of you are going to make one of your New Year’s resolutions. Exercise! We were teaching the word of wisdom and talking about the spiritual insights that come from abstaining from the things God has asked us not too. And we were talking about how for most of us who are already baptized the next step is do eat right and exercise. Imagine if we can see spiritual insights and growth from living the bare minimum word of wisdom that most of us do, how much better it will be as we live it as fully as we can. And I was thinking about the missionary schedule. The first thing you do when you get up in the morning is exercise. After that you prepare for the day and eat and then study. Exercising right after you roll out of bed is the worst but, I think that it might be designed that way to help us be able to get more out of our studies. And we take the opportunity to live the word of wisdom by taking care of our bodies through exercise and then eating a god breakfast, it will open our minds to further spiritual insights we can then receive as we study to help us throughout the day. At least, that's my new theory and it's a little better intensive at least for me to not be a slacker than "because you're supposed to do it." Spiritual and temporal knowledge is in the balance here! Ha, ha anyway, I'll try it out and let you know how it goes! Have a good new year! 

Love, 

April