Happy New Year!

Hello Everyone!!! Happy New Year!!

It's been a while since we were last able to email and quite a bit has happened, but I'll try to keep it short. :)

1. Christmas! Christmas was so fun, the best part was easily getting to Skype my family. Temple Square was closed Christmas morning until 4:00 in the afternoon, and so we got treated to breakfast by the Senior Couples and then were just free to call our families, take a nap, and then open our Christmas stocking - also put together by our sweet Senior Couples with donations from local stakes. We had a Christmas program where many of the Sisters performed, and it was so great. I think that Christmas 2k17 has to be my best Christmas to date. It was such a special thing to spend the day that we use to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ in the shadow of the temple and surrounded by other Sister missionaries whose full time responsibility right now is to represent our Savior. I'm so glad I have another Christmas to look forward to on the mission.

2. Patrick!!! People talk about golden investigators, but I need a metal more precious to call this guy. Patrick is amazing. We got him from an inbound call on mormon.org, he just had a few questions about the church from a pass along card given to him on a bus and before we knew it I had taught him the Restoration and had set a return appointment to teach him the Plan of Salvation, this time with my companion. (1st time contact is solo, we're starting to do companionship first time contact too more recently) Since that day, the 17th, we have been able to talk to him every day and have been able to teach him the first three lessons, one of the commandments, he went to church on Sunday, and today we called the local missionaries to give them their late Christmas present. And for the record, he's already in Mosiah. He's so golden and we already love him so much, we're really excited about him.

3. This has been overall a really good week with investigators for us. We had Patrick, John, Santiago, Faith, and Mario all at church on Sunday and we've been able to teach all of them at least twice this week. Mario actually had his baptismal interview yesterday, and he and his 8 year old son will be getting baptized on the 14th! We're going to Skype in, we're super excited!! We just have to pray that he'll be okay until the 14th. It seems that once the interview has happened especially is when the adversary really starts to pull out everything on them.

4. I was asked to give a training in Spanish meeting on "recorridos cortos y poderosos"or short and powerful tours. It was fun! On Temple Square with all the different languages that the Sisters speak, we all have a language meeting once a transfer when you go to that meeting and you are able to speak your language. So my training was in Spanish for all the Spanish speaking Sisters. I enjoyed it a lot. 

5. I know that Heavenly Father loves us and He loves our investigators. I can't think of a better thing that I could be doing with my life right now than preaching the gospel to His children. I love how much peace the Book of Mormon brings to my life and how much I'm able to learn from it. One of my Zone Leaders is Sister Cox, and I was talking to her the other day about the Book of Mormon and we started talking about "flips of faith". It's when you don't know what to do or someone asks you something you don't quite know how to answer, so you just look at your companion, look at the Book of Mormon in front of you, say a silent prayer and just open the Book. I was struggling to think of how to help an investigator who hasn't been progressing, and I knew that God wanted to help me and I thought of how I talk to Him through prayer, but more often than not I find my answers in the scriptures. So I just did a flip of faith and landed on Mosiah 1:17. God answers prayers. I knew exactly what I needed to talk to our investigator about. I love my Heavenly Father and my Savior. I know that They know me perfectly, and love me perfectly. I am so grateful for Them, and for the tools they have given me in my life. 

I love you all, and I hope you have a great week!!

--Sister Black