The Spirit of Christmas

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Good Morning!!

This week was a miracle! It’s like Thanksgiving ends and suddenly everyone remembers Jesus Christ again and how much He has done for the world. Last night we went caroling and it was amazing! People opened their door to us when we sang to them when they would never do it normally and we got some solid potential investigators from it. =) One potential investigator's name is Swagat. He was so nice. He loved the caroling and said he'd watch the free Christmas DVD. Hopefully we'll be meeting him again on Thursday and sharing a Christmas message with him. The Christmas season is going to bring miracles. I have no doubts about it.

The real miracle is that we were able to add a lot of investigators. We added 5 new investigators. That's the most I've ever added as a Battalion Sister. It was a real miracle. The Lord knew that we were doing the best we could and rewarded us. The people we added are pretty awesome too. One of them is from India. The San Diego Battalion is the most international mission ever! Yep! I'm pretty sure it is. It’s just been a really incredible week. I know that we experience hard times because the Lord wants us to appreciate the good times even more. He is such a blessing to us. Yesterday, I got to use some of the Spanish I've picked up as well. Woohoo! In the past few weeks we've "put on the backburner" a lot of people we were meeting with and we've focused primarily on finding less actives and on getting the members more involved. But this last week we prayed with all of our faith for referrals. When we pray for specific things, we definitely get specific answers. The Lord has blessed us a lot with referrals and some of those referrals have turned into people who are investigating that we can meet with, most of them after finals though. Finals are this week which means that there is a finals breakfast every single day. We're trying to get non members to go like Swagat and a girl named Lisa. We get to go tomorrow. =) After finals everyone will be free! A Christmas/birthday present to me!

Max and a kid named Yoda came to church on Sunday. Ha-ha. They are both super funny. Yoda came with his friend Makani, and they came to the Battalion yesterday and we're meeting with them again tonight. They are just... funny. It’s the best way to describe them. Makani is less active but is forced to go to church because he's living with his aunt and Yoda is not a member. They are exploring ALL religions; reading the Quran and the Torah and the Hindu script. It’s impressive. Our goal is to get them to read the Book of Mormon. But the reason they are so funny is because they want to be Yak's. I'm not even kidding. They want to have a Yak farm. I think that was the single funniest lesson I've ever been in. It was great; spiritual, but also hilarious.

I did get to see most of the Christmas devotional! It was great. The movie clips they showed were awesome.

I got to go on exchanges again with Sister Burden! We're meant to be companions forever, I'm pretty sure, because in every single group (the Battalion is equivalent to a district), we've been together. So we've gotten to go on exchanges a lot, and it’s a party. It’s cool to see how much she has grown and how we can still learn and grow from each other. The mission is the best experience ever. I would never change it for the world. I've become so much more aware of how precious every person on this earth is, how miracles truly happen every day, and how faith brings specific responses.

This work is real, it’s true, and it truly brings happiness. I'm so blessed to be part of it here in San Diego.

I love you all so much! Have a wonderful week!!

Love,

Sister Tardiff