I hope that everyone had a safe and fun New Years. On New Years eve we were of course in the VC. All of the missionaries sang and I think it went pretty well (mom if you haven't already you should be getting some pictures from the Crandalls). There was a little mission party but as a VC we had to split in half to go so that the center was covered and ended up being there for only about 15 minutes. After closing it was home and in bed by 11:30. On New Years day all of the sisters from the VC went with the directors and another senior couple bowling. It was so much fun! Many of the sisters had never bowled before, and as usually is the case with bowling, the rest of us were all at about the same level. Elder Burke, however, seems to have a hidden talent for bowling. He blew us all away! Maybe it was because he plays golf every week, so he has a good arm. After that we went back to the VC and had pizza and then opened at 5. That was the last day of the lights and it has been pretty quiet in the VC ever since. We are back to our old schedule. In almost every way that is good because we have so much time in our area now, but that means that we won't be working with all of the sisters every night, so I think I'll start to miss some of them.

On Saturday night, the lights came on for a few hours, even though they were officially over. I guess the timers were still on. There were only 6 of us there that night and it began to get a little crowded. However, amid all that we got to witness a really awesome miracle. While Hna. Lopez and I were at the back desk, there was a girl sitting in one of the chairs going through her phone and writing something down. Then she came up to us and asked of she could have some referral cards. We told her that of course we would love to give her some cards and asked how many she would need. "Twenty." We were so shocked! Hna. Lopez said, "you know you can fit 2 names on a card" so we gave her 10 cards. We asked her if it was for a project or something and she said no, it was just for her friends. She took them and then went back and sat down and began filling them out. When we had to change posts we told the sister coming to back desk about it. She ended up giving us 21 names! Sis. Smith was the one at back desk when she gave them to us. The girl told her that she was really scared to do it, but that it was one of her New Year's resolutions and she wanted to start off well. She is going to be so blessed for that! I wish that I had the courage to share the gospel with more of my friends before my mission. That is something that I will definitely change when I get home. I have seen the mixture of love, joy, excitement, hesitation and faith as people in the VC invite their friends to learn about the gospel and because of it, we sent out almost 2000 confirmed teaching opportunities during December. And there are so many more to send! I haven't even counted the number of cards in my box to call, but I can certainly say that there are a lot!

That is all for this week. I hope you all aren't freezing wherever you are... it has been in the 70s all week here!

Desde Mesa con amor,
Hermana Ladd