Good Tidings of Great Joy

Luke 2:10 "And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people." Thought I'd begin my email this week with my ponderize scripture! Such a classic Christmas scripture, but I've just been thinking how as missionaries we are also bringing the GOOD TIDINGS OF GREAT JOY. Sometimes I just want to shout to the whole world that we have such happy news. That a Savior was born for each one of us!  And that we have His church here again on the earth. As a mission this Christmas during the "A Savior is Born" initiative we have set a goal to get 1000 new investigators - kind of seems like a lot! But as we break it down by companionship it's only 3 new investigators per week (aka our standard of excellence) and it's so doable! We've been seeing so many miracles come from this goal. Last week we found 4 new investigators (3 we ended up passing off to other areas). And already this week on Monday Sister Fink found 3 investigators (she was on a split while me and Sis Smith went to a returning missionaries meeting) - SO AWESOME. There is a special spirit that comes to missionary work during Christmas!  So this week we spent a good amount of our time tracting and finding to reach our goal, but there was also other good things too! One of the new investigators we found was a referral from the Lopez familia (the adorable children from last week's pictures). Her name is Lily and we had our first ever lesson with her on Thursday. She even accepted a baptismal commitment if she comes to know the things we teach to be true. Member referrals are the best! Thursday was also a day of service. We started out by helping with the food pantry here in Stamford. Missionaries have been helping for years. It's connected to an African American church and they are just the greatest. Always something exciting happening, this week we almost had a huge fight break out and nearly ran out of bags. We also got to help one of our Ward members edit an English paper she wrote. Even the simplest service just brightens your day! Saturday was one of those days as a missionary when you realize how weird and crazy New York and Connecticut and missionary work truly is. We started off pretty normal, we went with the Ward to sing Christmas songs and give out little gifts at a nursing home. They were all so happy (and you know me and old people- I love them) needless to say it was a highlight of the day/week. But then later on that day we were trying to coordinate the devotional we're having next Sunday (missionaries are doing a second performance for instigators and members) and had to try and figure out if we could still do it because another Ward was having a musical program - in Spanish. For deaf people & English people....and they aren't really doing church approved hymns either. So that was pretty funny to us and then we walk into the church for the Ward nativity practice and the elders are in the kitchen cutting Hermano Chinchay's hair...while the English Ward party is going on....and then we proceed to practice the nativity which is always just so funny (I'm a shepherd with Sister Fink now) and then as we were leaving the church we had to help jump Hermano Chinchay's car. I know it probably doesn't make quite as much sense to you, but just the entire day was the oddest combination of strange things happening to us. Sunday was a really good day!         First we had a miracle because Marie Carmen (the investigator of like over 8 years) came to church AND THE CHRISTMAS DEVOTIONAL. The Yorktown stake hosted a Christmas devotional/concert and so we went early to help Hermana Garcia set up refreshments and then we were planning on leaving to go do some finding because we didn't have any investigators show up. But then Marie Carmen came with her good friend (another member) and even helped with refreshments, it was awesome. And the music was really incredible. There is some really incredible talent in this stake.         Carmen Chica also came to part of church this week which is really good. We were able to see her two more times after originally refinding/meeting with her. And then she came to church! So happy.         Before the concert we were on our way to see magnolia....but she canceled while we were in the parking lot. So we decided to go to still go to Henry street (where she lives), just planning on going tracting but then we decided to lookup Lubia AND yet again she was a "magical referral box". Her son and we started off by showing them the Christmas video and then started to talk about the Book of Mormon, he was really smart and stubborn - BUT he was interested in learning more so we set up an appointment for the elders to meet with him! Well that was our week, so crazy to think that Christmas is NEXT WEEK. I hope everyone is getting in the true Christmas spirit and has such a fun happy week! I love you all! Con Amor, Hermana Smart