Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! It is such a wonderful time of year where we can remember the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. It is a little different as a missionary, in some ways its even better. It's a white Christmas in our district. We don't get any snow here in southern California, but we did have three new convert baptisms last Saturday. We got to go, because Elder Atkin is the district leader. It was a wonderful experience to see the other missionaries in our district having success. Also we are seeing a lot of things happen in our area. This last week we taught Chris and Katherine and they are learning a lot. We taught them the Plan of Salvation in our last lesson and they are now set with a baptizmal date for February 8th. We teach them today and I am excited to see them learn and gain a testimony. 

Also Lisa Brinton a non-member who has been coming to church for 6 months or so wants to take the missionary lessons and get baptized. Her husband was the only thing holding her back. He only wants the missionaries to come teach, but hopefully members will come along soon. We are really excited though she already understands a lot about the gospel and is changing her life. This is probably one of the best referrals I have ever gotten. We don't have a date yet, but she did say she wants to be baptized as soon as possible. We teach her on friday so we will set a date then.

I love this Christmas season and it is important to remember why we celebrate. We have been sharing a Christmas message with families and it includes the nativity story from the book of mormon. It is a much more intense story in 3 NE 1, but basically everyone who believed in the prophets were going to be killed if the sign didn't come. It took a lot of trust in the Lord, they new the sign would come and if it didn't they would die. They had to remained faithful and were blessed for it. We know the church is true, so we need to trust the Lord that he will bless us. I love you guys and have a merry Christmas!