Happy New Year!

Happy New Year Family! That week was very fast and it was so fun to see all of your sweet faces on Skype Christmas day. I honestly cannot believe that 2012 has already finished! Much of it feels like a blur and I can´t believe we are entering 2013. 

This week was very crazy as we all were focusing very much on concluding the month and year with baptisms. This week we spent much of it in other sectors helping the people with baptismal fechas close out strong with their fechas so we could complete the goal as a zone and then conclude strong as a mission. Thursday i interviewed 7 different people for baptism and it was a very busy day! Friday we worked in our sector for a little bit and we are working with a less active family who wants to return to church. They also have a family friend named Jorge who is also one of our investigators. He is now reading the book of Mormon and is progressing really well. He has accepted a challenge to be baptized and is progressing well but the problem is that he works in the mines so it is really hard because he can only come to church every other week. The other day we were doing street contacts and then i had the idea to go one street over and then one of the members found us from the other ward telling me that she had a reference for us! I was excited and then we set a cita with her and the friend for Saturday morning. Friday night i had to do two more interviews for the other hermanas. It was fun to meet all of these people and to see the progression of these people as they make their journey unto the savior. 

Saturday morning we taught the reference from the member and she is already reading the book of Mormon thanks to the help of this wonderful member. The lesson went really well and the investigator accepted all of the commitments. Saturday night we went the capilla of the hermanas because one of their baptismal fechas wanted that i baptize her and my companion would baptize her little sister. I had helped the girl with her English studies and helped her prepare for a test and the scored a 7/7 on her test so she was really happy. So Saturday night we went over to the chapel of the hermanas and we baptized over there. It was really cool we took a bunch of pictures there were so many of us just dressed in full out white.  

Sunday we brought a Colombian to church one that we are working with and he is progressing gradually. He loves us to come to his house and teach him more about the savior and whenever we go over all of the friends and family come to listen to us. I hope that we can see some progression with this family. We completed the goal as a mission and a zone! We baptized 21 as a zone and then as a mission we finished with 1029 baptisms! I am excited to see what ideas and vision president has for the beginning of the year this next year. 

This morning for p day and to celebrate as a mission we went paint balling! The pappitos took us paint balling it was so much fun! They took us all in his micro thing that he has and the majority of the 2 zones went and it was very cool. There was this course thing in the middle of the desert and it was great to have a fun activity like that with all of the missionaries. 

Have a great week! 

Elder Newman