Christmas week!

Buenos Dias Familia Mia!

Como estan? Espero que esten bien y que esten listos para hablar me en el sabado. Estoy animado para llamarles!

But seriously, we are going over to the Black Family's home on Saturday morning. We will be going there around 9am in the morning. There are 4 of us elders going so I am going to let the other 3 call first because they all live further east than you all. Elder Hernandez has to call his family in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico right at 9am. Elder Williams is going to call his family in Montgomery, Alabama at 10am, Elder Biddle is calling his family at 11am (Billings, Montana), and I am going last around noon to call you all. So, at around 11am your time I should be calling. You should all be done with presents and such by then and be ready to chat. I sure hope so! I have a ton to tell you all and it will be great to hear your voices. I too want to save some for the call, but I will write enough to keep your minds turned on while you read!

Saturday night at 7pm Anthony Cruz is getting baptized. He is the boy in the picture that was sent to you by Hna. Cruz. He is 12 and the only remaining member of his family that needs baptism. His dad was going to baptize him, but he does not feel quite prepared so Anthony asked me to do it instead. It was my goal to never get my baptismal clothes wet, but hey, I guess I have to do it sometime, so why not on Christmas?!?! I think a ton of people should be there at the baptism. The ward is finally catching on to the missionary spirit. It is getting exciting. The Liahona 4th ward once was the center of missionary work in Arizona. It kind of died off due to a number of somewhat lazy and apostate missionaries. They used to have 70+ baptisms a year, but right now it is at less than 20 this year. However, with Anthony we will have had a baptism every weekend in the ward for 6 weeks! I really want to be a part of turning this ward around and making it the powerhouse it once was. I want to get this area EXPLODING with so many investigators that they have to split the area. With the pace we are going, it is not too far off.

Yesterday is a prime example of how awesome things are going in our ward now. We are expected to teach 20 lessons every 7 days. This works out to roughly 3 a day. Yesterday we taught 5 lessons. The mission average is 7 out of 20 lessons a week with a member present at the lesson. Yesterday all 5 were with a member. Today we have another 4 investigator lessons planned, all with member presents. By 2 days into the week we will have half of all of our lessons for the week with members at all of them!! WOOOO-HOOOO! I seriously love teaching with members. Many believe they have weak and inadequate testimonies. IT shocks them when in lesson they begin to bear testimony and realize just how strong their testimony really is. It has helped a lot of less actives to come out and teach with us. They are now way active and have even more powerful testimonies. I hope to have out area to 30 lessons a week by the time I leave here, which I sure hope is not soon. I want to stay here as long as possible. I love it.

Maddy and Will! With your two weeks off, you should all have a ton of time to help mom out in the house! Just kidding, kind of. I hope you all get to go snowboarding a few times during break. I talked to a few people here at the temple from Flagstaff and they said it is a great winter up there. Who is faster now? Maddy or Will? I think it would be Maddy. She was really getting good by the end of last year. You should all convince dad to take my board out and strap it on for a day! I think you could all have a lot of fun with that! OH! And you all never told me what you wanted for Christmas!

I mailed off a priority mail package last Friday so it should be getting there soon! When you get it, you can open it. I have presents in there for all of you (They are wrapped). DON'T OPEN THEM (the separate gifts) UNTIL CHRISTMAS!!! There is also a present for Grandma and Grandpa John in it. I think Grandpa John is going to get a few giggles out of it. I found it in a dried up canal. There are a few things that are not really presents. You can look through my old planners and dad can use the bike tubes I had from my stolen bike. The presents I all got you are pretty neat I think. The ones for you, Will and Maddy, are pretty relevant to yourselves and stuff that will happen kind of soon in life. I got one big present for all of the family. I hope you love it. It is for FHE and such and I love the stuff in it! Mom, the one wrapped in red construction paper is kind of a birthday/christmas present! I should be getting you a card though before your birthday, the tough part is that we do not have P-day again until new years after Christmas. Yeah, a long time.

Other than that, I am reading the Book of Mormon for the 3rd time on my mission now. I love the Story of the Tree of Life so much more now. When I read it I could not stop and so many thoughts and ideas came to mind. I could easily apply it all to myself and to each of my investigators. When you read the Book of Mormon with a true desire to gain inspiration, it is 20x more exciting. Every page is great, even the Isaiah chapters. I am in the middle of those right now. Chapter 18 I think of 2nd Nefi --- err Nephi. Those really are quite the brain twister. I really am trying hard to glean something from all of it. It is tough, but I am learning a ton of new things about the Gospel.

We set two baptismal dates last week in one day. One with Jocabed, and one with Maria Aragon. Jocabed has come to Church for the last two consecutive weeks and she is really growing to love it. She is getting swarmed by the women every week which is AWESOME! I really think she will be way ready by the date we set of January the 8th. She was pentecostal and for a while we were going to drop her. She believed in the gift of tongues....but the crazy one where you speak nonexistant languages. Now, she really understands what the Holy Ghost is. It is great.

With Maria, she set an Hastaqui with her boyfriend. He has until Feb. 5th to marry her or she is moving out and getting baptized.

Moises and Graciela are STILL waiting on her birth certificate. They are more than ready to be baptized. They read the Book of Mormon as a couple and pray as a couple every night. I doubt many lifelong members do that. I want their papers to show up this week sooooooooooooo badly! Then, we could have a wedding and all on Christmas, too!

Well, I need to be going. I love you all so much. I am going to be calling you all around 11am YOUR TIME on Saturday. Give or take half an hour. I am way pumped to have all of those toy cars to give the little spanish kids. They are going to love Hermano Pearson. Hahahhahaha. I love you all and I hope this week is 100% excellent for you all. Matta's is in fact in my district! So, I should be able to go there. I will need to get President Ellsworth's permission to go! But I will try!

Con mi Amor,

Elder Pearson

(posted by Maddy)