hey!!

Hola familia, 

This week was good. The missionaries in our zone got to go to the Rose Parade this week, which was awesome!!! Apparently Elder Cook was across the street from us, but we didn't go over to talk to him,some of the elders did though. 

This week, we received a few referrals from members in the ward and made really good contact with one and are still trying to get in contact with the other 2. We've had some good contacts with former investigators, neighbors of less actives, and street contacts. In fact, several of the people we've talked to the past couple weeks have strong connections to the church already (they have extended family that are members, etc.). One thing that I've been trying to learn is how to get our pool of potential investigators to become investigators, and when to stop chasing them down, so we can move the work forward rather than always going to the same people who are not progressing. This past transfer has taught me alot. It's been very challenging, but also a huge blessing, a good challenge. I love missionary work.

We were supposed to have exchanges last week, but the night before, Hna. Connelly was up all night sick (literally all night) and it wasn't a very good night for either of us, so we ended up having to reschedule exchanges. We spent pretty much all day at home and then went out for one lesson that night. I felt so bad for her. We'll be doing exchanges tomorrow now, so I'll get to go to East LA (San Gabriel) for a day. I'm excited!

There are alot of little miracles happening here still. We had a great lesson with a LA family we've been working with. When we first came, they were really reluctant to do anything, but a couple lessons ago, we invited them to read the scriptures as a family and the next time we came back they told us that they had! In our last lesson with the father and one of their daughters, both of them said a kneeling prayer at the end of the lesson! Slowly, they are making the steps to let Christ in their home. Another exciting thing was that we finally got to start meeting with Isis again, an investigator we've been teaching for a couple months. We committed her to baptism last Tuesday and she said yes to a date. Originally, we had given her a date of January 13th, but the next couple days neither of us felt good about that date. We've decided to change the date to the 27th. I think she can be prepared that day. We're going to be focusing alot on her these next few weeks to prepare her for baptism. 

I love working with Hna. Connelly. We are very united and both are dedicated to working hard. Sometimes, I get worried that I'm not doing everything right as a trainer, but we're learning together, and I am learning a ton as we go. We had a funny experience last night as we were sleeping, somehow we had started talking about one of our less actives in our sleep and slowly came too as we were talking about how we could help her! (We really are united!)

Hope you're all doing well. I love you!!

-Hna LaPierre