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Well we've survived the first week of Christmas lights! It is amazing how little time we have in the area. Our numbers have dropped even though we are working hard. Oh well, at least if we are working hard this transfer we have the promise of seeing the blessings in the future. The Farnsworth baptism was on Saturday. It was really special. There were so many people there, both from our branch and the English ward that Juan Carlos goes to. They were both confirmed on Sunday, and we were able to go to both meetings. It was great to finally see a family reach baptism, and then continue through that gate. I know that Rosalva's faith will be such a blessing to their family, I think she was the key to activating Larry and keeping him active. Juan Carlos one day will be a missionary and will go on to bless the lives of others. He has already started asking about what it takes to be a missionary. We are again waiting for the date for the Mestre baptism. The Lord is preparing that family for something huge! In years to come we will be able to see why their faith had to be tested so much. We have started seeing a few Christmas miracles. Yesterday, some of Hna. Blades' former investigators came to church at an English ward. The elders let us know and we are going to meet with them next week. We are finding more hispanic people little by little and most of them have agreed to let us come back. The biggest problem is still that they don't like to make appointments, and with our tight schedule we really like to have appointments, especially so that we can bring members.

Last week, the mission went to the temple together. First Pres. and Sis. Bassett spoke to us in the chapel behind the temple, and then we all went to the temple together (by all I mean about half of the missionaries in Mesa, there are so many of us that we had to be split in two days.) We only had 2 hours between the time that we got out of the conference to the time we needed to be back at the VC, so instead of wasting 1 hour and a bunch of miles, we had Rosalva come down to the VC to watch the Joseph Smith movie. We called almost every female member in our branch to see if they could bring her because she can't drive, but none of them could do it. Either they work during the day, or their kids come home from school at that time, or there husband was using the car, even one member who happened to have a doctor's appt at that time. Finally we had to call Hna. Mestre. Our investigator was the only one who could bring our investigator to the lesson! I love them so much, they are so willing to help us out. (I'm not complaining about our branch, we are so blessed with the members we have and they are so willing to help when they can, I'm just pointing out how amazing our investigators are.)

It has been just over a week since the lights started. The VC is very busy every night. However, there is such a variety of people who come in, so many people to talk to. We are on our feet all night and the individual hours are slow, but still the days seem to fly by. And each hour goes by faster the more people you talk to. When we are on shift in the morning is when we can count on our hands all the people that come in. I love the VC so much, especially right now, that I am already planning on asking the next mission president if I can stay for an extra transfer. I am scheduled to leave 3 days after we turn on the lights next year.

Today we are going to put up the tree in the Crandell's house. The other day on our way home I drove through some of the neighborhoods in our area so that Hna. Lopez could see all of the houses decorated. She was amazed by them and it was so fun to hear her. There is nothing like this in Bolivia. Even though I see Christmas lights every year they all seem more amazing this year when I heard how happy they make her.

De Mesa con amor,
Hermana Ladd