Family of Mine!

Dearest Family,

Thanks for all of the warm and loving emails. Especially the one with the picture of Maddy and Will up at the mountain. The mailman accidentally put a ski magazine in our mailbox and wow, was that a temptation or what! It makes me happy that you are all able to be enjoying yourselves during this time of year. While I miss you all, I know I need to be here and I really am happier here than I ever have been before in my life. Every day is good. Even the worst of days on the mission have really bright, shiny moments.

I got your package last thursday and it is sitting under our "Chrsitmas Tree". It is just a little electronic fiber optic doo-dad that looks like a little pine tree that lights up. It is pretty cool. It is enough to make me feel like it is Christmas time. I found some wrapping paper in a closet so I wrapped up the package and it is under the tree. Elder Williams got a stocking full of snacks. It was meant to be a christmas package but he did not know. So we are eating it all.

I will indeed be busy on Christmas. We are eating at an American Family in our ward's house. Brother and Sister Black. They are pretty old, like in their 80's. BUT! They love missionaries and they said we could use their phones to call home. We are headed there at 9am on Christmas morning, so I will probably call late morning to early afternoon. I will let you know more specifically as it gets closer. We still have like two more weeks! It sounds like we should have about an hour of talk time on Christmas. I figure that should be plenty. You should invite Mel and Grandma, and Grandpa, and everyone else over. It will be almost like I am there.

Plans are still in place for the three baptisms on Christmas Day! I am way excited. We will probably do them later in the evening. It will pretty much be the most incredible Christmas I have ever had. I am way, way, way more excited for Christmas this year than I ever have been before.

This past Sunday, we had a baptism! It was the little girl named Estrella. She turns 10 this week. She has been ready forever, it has just been a matter of getting permission from her mom. Her mom finally signed and Estrella is now a member! Her dad, Emilio, was so jealous of her he started to cry. He really wants to be baptized. But, he is in the process of dropping smoking and his wife, Luz, is married to another man in Mexico. They need to get that fixed before he can get baptized. He wants it so bad though. It breaks my heart to see him being held back by legalities, but hey, it is the Lord's Commandment. The Mom Luz is going to start coming to Church again, the Women of the ward really fellowshipped her well at the baptism. I pray she makes a turn in Faith.

I worked Christmas lights again last week. It was fun, but there was almost no one there. It was kind of like a desert. The nice part was is that I had a lot of peacful time in which I could think and really focus on the Spirit there at the temple. It was great. Christmas lights really is nuts. We have recieved 20 or so refferals because of lights and we get 1-2 more every day.

Will asked how many people I am teaching. People we teach frequently is about 10 families. People we teach overall is about 35-40. It keeps us really busy on our bikes. Just to name them all, to see if I can. We have Emilio, Moises, Graciela, Santo, Emilio, Jocabed, Guadalupe, Isabel, Martin, Angel, Dina, Diana, Fernando, Benjamin, Bernancio, Katy, Grabriel, Alejandra, Rick, Juan, Miguel, Jose, Rosario, Maria, Alvaro, Anthony...and many, many more. The named ones are just the primary bunch we see a few times every week.

A lot of miracles happened in the last week. We have a lot of investigators who read and pray, but can't seem to get to Church. One of such is Jocabed. She is the Sister-in-law of one of our members. She is in her 30's and has one little girl, Leilani. She was raised pentecostal, speaking in tongues and all. Well, she came to Church on Sunday and though it was different, she really loved it. She really, really like Relief Society and it made a huge difference. She decided to finally pray about the Book of Mormon and she said she knows it is ture because god keeps making her want to read it. She said now she is looking for her answer about Joseph Smith. I am sure that will come quickly. Then, it will just be a matter of a paper and an interview and she is the newest member of the Liahona 4th ward.

Last week we had a lot of success in having members come out and help up. Every lesson with a member is like 5 without. They can put a name and a face to the Church who does not wear a nametag such as myself. We taught 24 lessons which is the most I have ever taught in a week thus far. Even though my bikes was stolen and other chaos, it was an awesome week! I have tons more I could tell you all, but I have ton to do today.

We have cleaning inspections tomorrow and the cleaning inspection missionary couple are CRAZY! My apartment has had missionaries in it for 12 years. You can imagine how dirty it is.


I love you all so much and I thank you for supporting me every step of the way. I am loving every minute of my mission and I am blessing the lives of others with the help of you, and most importantly, the help of out Heavenly Father. I know you are all being blessed back home and I am excited to talk to you all relatively soon. Let me know if there is ever anything I can do for you all from afar. I will do whatever is possible!

Also, Maddy, congrats on Personal Progress. Duty to God is one of the many opportunities I looked over. You are a hard worker that I am proud to call my sister. The scariest thing to me right now is that in 6 months you will be driving....BY YOURSELF! You are growing up way, way too quick.

I love you and you are in my thoughts and prayers!

Your Son/Bro

Elder Jonathan Pearson

(posted by Maddy)