Happy New Year!!!

Hello all!  We have another Pday (preparation day)  because it is not likely for us to have much success teaching on this holiday.  My companion and I are in Funes right now hanging out with Hermana Collins from Oregon and Hermana Tourtillout from Kansas (Tourtillout and I traveled together on the plane here).  We just finished playing some basketball, and later tonight Hermana Gerratt and I are going to watch a church movie and eat dinner with one of our investigators in the chapel.  

This week was pretty spectacular.  We decided to go visit a less active family, whose father we normally chat with, but this time we were able to have the mother open up to us and explain some things she is having a hard time understanding about the church.  We offered to come over on Friday and clean her patio (backyard) and they offered to cook us some asado after!  We LOVE doing service here because it really helps gain trust, and well, service is awesome anyway! Hna Gerratt and I ended up changing our schedule and asked if we could come on Wednesday instead.  When we arrived we discovered someone new had moved in, the mother´s aunt.  We visited with her and after lunch she really opened up to us and said that just the night before she was praying to know the Lord´s camino (path/way) ¨and then I met you!¨  Wow.  I love when people can make the connection that we are sent from the Lord before we tell them that yes, we truly are His messengers!  It was meant to be for us to come on Wednesday, because she was so open with us we felt inspired to ask to come on Friday and explain more about our Church. Yesterday she told us she loves her job as a caretaker because she knows that is what God wants her to do, it is her calling in life.  I asked her what her background is as far as being familiar with the Bible and how often she went to Church, and we were incredibly surprised to hear that she has never read the Bible and she has only gone to a church or two twice.  She sounded like she was born and raised in a Christian home!  It was such a testimony to me that the Lord speaks to his children in so many different ways, and that people can have so much faith and be so prepared to come unto Christ through baptism, and they don´t even know it!  She told us a lot more that was music to our ears, and the smile on her face when we told her that the Book of Mormon was hers to keep was so beautiful.  She thought she had to give it back after she was finished!  

I am loving the way the Lord works, how people cross our path and we help them find exactly what they need.  This way we can reanimate... (ok that is a spanish term... re-excite? re-enthuse? you get the idea)  the less active famliy while teaching their aunt!  I love this work!  

2012... can you believe it?!  I am going to be a missionary for ALL of 2012.  Crazy!  My New Year´s Resolutions are a lot different, and I feel like I have been making goals since September... but this will be good to have a landmark in my horizon to work toward!  I am imagining the type of missionary I would like to be in January 2013, and I hope I can get there!  I hope you all have a lovely New Year´s Eve and a Happy New Year.  It´s always been my favorite holiday.  If you know my family and our crazy tradition with the Rose Parade then you know why.  They are most likely on the route staking out their territory right now.  So proud. 

Feliz Año Nuevo!  I´ll be ringing in the new year with some fireworks (I´ll be watching, not firing them off, just fyi) and hamburgers!!  

xoxo hermana miller