Not Your Regular Mission: New Year New Hair

Happy New Year everyone!!

So I did the thing I said I would never do. I cut my hair! I'd been thinking of doing it for a while, but keeping it secret. New Year's Day though, while serving at the hill, I just thought "New Year, new hair" and went for it. Luckily Sister Andersen, one of the sisters who lives with us went to beauty school so she did it for free. So...short hair is back!

Speaking of New Year, that was a pretty funny holiday. Us missionaries had to be in by eight, so after daily planning we cracked open a Martinelli's and danced to EFY and Christian Rock until 10:30. I slept through the first few hours of 2017, but the next morning for church none of us were wrecked! Priorities!

PARTY!!!!

At church we had tons of people we were planning on coming. Everyone fell through except for our beloved Courtney. So cool experience: everyone in Naples knows each other. We had recently contacted a referral from Amanda, who I think I mentioned last email. Either way, Amanda is a less active we had been looking for who just happened to be best friends with Courtney. We're working with both of them now, but besides the point. We contact Mike who was planning on coming, and then the next day Courtney goes to his New Years party where he says he was hitching a ride to our church. She wasn't planning on coming the day before, but figured she would if Mike was. It ended up that Mike didn't even go, but even still, he had a role in Courtney coming, which she's needed these past few days. Some sad news about Courtney. We're pushing her baptism back indefinitely, were still working on a new date. She expressed to us she's not sure she can keep all the commitments that come along with baptism. But she still is pressing forward, reading the Book of Mormon every day. We have the faith it will happen, but all in the Lords timing. Please pray for her! There is a power in prayer. I know there is.

Yesterday was a pretty cool experience. The sites were just popping with Spanish people. A pair of men came down to the Smith farm from Panama. We were serving at the Hill, so they called us down and we gave them a tour. Elder Erickson, the senior Elder on site, had to come along because we don't take single men on tours. He shared some accounts, which I translated, and there is no greater

feeling then being the way people hear the gospel. Both were converts and upstairs in the log home I translated their conversion stories to Elder Erickson. I can't begin to describe the Spirit there, such a special experience.Also, after dropping them off at the Grove and were walking back sister Erickson

comes up with another Spanish tour! A man from Chile who wasn't a member. He lived in New York, but would soon be going back to Chile, and had been curious to see the sites because lots of his friends had converted. Another wonderful powerful experience. I gave him a Spanish Book of Mormon with my testimony in it (I make sure to carry a few of those around now). But lo and behold! The Spanish tours had not ceased! We return to the Hill and after finishing studies our shift is over. On the way out the door though, in walks in a family from Peru. Both the parents were converts, and they had been saving and waiting to come to the sites for a while. They were such humble people, amazed at the fact that they were there. So we stay a few minutes and

start them off on a tour in the Christus room. Another very needed and beautiful experience. Sometimes I feel like people come into the sites to touch my life more then I can touch theirs.

Here are some pictures for the week. We served at the Hill a lot this week, so pictures!