Dance, Dance, Romance...

December 9, 2014

**This is a day late because many latin countries celebrate the Catholic holiday called the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8th. It is their belief that this is the date when the virgin Mary was conceived. Nine months later on September 8th, while we are celebrating my mom's birthday, they celebrate the Nativity of Mary. Interesting, right?

Hey all, 

This email is going to be really short because I have like no time left. So here it goes. There was no romance this week because....uh...we are missionaries. But my knew companion is Hermana Dance, and I want to just dance with joy because she is INCREDIBLE! We get along so well, she is so sweet and nice, we work hard every day. We come home exhausted, sweaty, and with aching legs. In three words: Real. Missionary. Work. The best part is that we are enjoying every second of it. Since she is new to the area I have been showing her around and we have been trying to make connections. Our area has been kind of dead so we are excited to start over and get to work. We made some really good progress with Familia Vera and Familia Ortiz. Both are less active families that we were able to visit this week. Familia Ortiz are all members except the father. We went and had noche de hogar <Family Home Evening> with them last night and played a game and then Hermana Ortiz brought out what looked like hot dogs. It was like 8:30 at night but, oh well, she had been so sweet. So I ate my first ever chicken hot dog, which I didn't know until after we left. We ate it in a bun with mayonnaise. They put mayo on everything here. It was super good, surprisingly. With Familia Vera we were able to talk to the father (who is also not a member) a little bit. We are going to focus on him and the son that is going a little wayward. We also talked with Elli who is a RM from the family but fell a little away because some of the members were very rude. But she is making great strides to return. I just love the people here. They all have crazy stories, but they all are so devoted to God in some way or another. Yesterday was a national holiday about the virgin Mary. It was crazy. Everything was closed. People weren't super happy we were out tracting, but it was worth it because the message we have changes lives and is such a blessing. Well, I am out of time and I know that this email is all over the place and not as good as previous ones. Just know that I love the Lord, this work is powerful, and you can come closer to God by following the simple things (reading scriptures, praying, attending church) then by any other thing! 

Love you all,

Hermana Albach