We really enjoyed our phone call on Christmas Day.
It was great to talk to Isaac. He sounds so happy. It
really made our day to talk to him. He told us his mission
president said that they could talk for 45 minutes. An hour if
they really needed to. I informed him he really needed to talk
for the hour! Funny how something as simple as a phone call
totally made Christmas for all of us!

We hope that you all had a Merry Christmas

Christmas call tomorrow!

Tomorrow I get to talk to you guys!  I'm so excited.
We've been getting quite a bit of snow here.  On Friday we got
hit with 9 inches of snow and had to stay inside most of the day.
We had a dinner appointment with one of our members, so we walked
to his house that evening, then walked home afterwards.  It was
really neat. We also did a lot of service pushing a lot of cars
that were stuck in the snow.  We got hit with another storm on
Sunday, and since we couldn't use the cars we walked to church,
which was about mile and a half.  It was really neat.
We waited there for about 20 minutes,because we were the first
ones there, until the Bishop got there.  Brother Tai,in the ward
here gave us a ride home afterwards.  By then the roads were
alright so we drove the car the rest of the day.  When Brother Tai
got the the church it was pretty funny.He got out of his car,
looked around and didn't see either of the Missionary cars,
then yelled at us "Are you crazy?? You guys WALKED here!??"
We told him that, yep, we did.  It was a really neat experience,
and it showed to the members that we're dedicated.

This last Sunday we only had 30 people in Sacrament,
because of the snow, and they cancelled the third hour.
Sacrament was a really neat Christmas meeting, with musical numbers.
I actually played in it!  I played my "Poor Wayfaring Man
of Grief" piece.  It was really cool. I've been staying pretty warm.
On the 6th of December there was a ward Christmas party, and the
Ward gave us a lot of food, and also some hats and gloves.
I still need to buy a scarf and some thermals.


I love you all and hope you have a good day.  The other Elders were
really excited about the stockings, especially Elder Quirino, he is
from Brazil, andprobably won't be getting a christmas package from home
for a while, because it takes so long to ship things from Brazil.
When I hung up the four stockings and told him there was one
for each of us he said "Man, your parents are awesome."

Oh, and the reason why we were traveling back and forth to New Jersey
so often that last week was because we had two Christmas firesides to put on.
One on the 12th of December in Morristown, and one the 14th in Union City.
We also had choir practice on the 10th of December, I think, and we had to go
down to Patterson once or twice for packages.  This week it has been nice to
get back to work.I'm really excited for Christmas here, we have two dinner
appointments tonight, and I can think of one tomorrow night.

I also enjoyed the picture.  It's funny how Ian and
Nick are doing the exact same thing in the picture.  That was a really fun
Christmas.  That was one of my favorite Christmas memories.

Love you all, Can't wait to talk to you tomorrow.

Love,
Isaac

Looking forward to our Christmas call!

We are so excited, we get to talk to Isaac in 8 days!! We spoke with him from the airport last month, but the call was only a few minutes long. Emily, Nick and Ian didn't get to talk to Isaac then so they are especially excited to talk on Christmas Day.
Here is an exert from Isaac's email today.

"This last week has been tough as we've been traveling back and forth from New Jersey just about every day the last week. We've had to try and work hard every hour we had, because we really didn't have a whole lot of hours to work. 2 experiences I want to share today. Last week we went on last Wednesday to see Robaldo, who we met on the street. We arrived at his house about 15 minutes early to catch him as he was on his way out the door to go to church, he had given us a time when he knew he wasn't going to be there. He kind of halfways said that his friend might be interested, so we went and knocked on the door to the house. (It's one of those houses where there are like 10 families in a really big house, there are like 2 or three kitchens in a house, and each family rents one room in the house, a lot of hispanics here live in situations like that.) We knocked and met Yony and his son Norby, and taught them a really good first lesson. when we taught him about the Book of Mormon and gave him a copy and asked him to read he responded "Si, voy a leer mucho!" He had said he had a lot of doubts and questions about his own religion. He went to an evangelical church, bit really didn't believe it, if you know what I mean. We are going back today to meet with him for a THIRD time, we met with him on Saturday as well. I think he's ready, and has been searching for the truth. Today, we are going to try to get his wife involved, we want to baptize the whole family if we can.
The other experience is shorter, we were out knocking yesterday, and it was freezing cold. I didn't have my coat, I only had my Suit-jacket, and I was hoping and praying we'd be invited in. The very first door we knocked yesterday. The FIRST DOOR the man invited us in. His name was Jaime, he let us in, we taught him a first lesson. He's catholic, but he accepted to read two chapters in the Book of Mormon, and we have a return appointment next Wednesday. It was pretty awesome."

He doesn't mention why they are traveling back and forth to New Jersey, just that they have been busy.
We appreciate all of you keeping Isaac in your prayers.
Liz

1 month in the field!

Today is my three month mark! Tomorrow is my one month mark in the field. Time seems to be flying by, I was glad to have received that call rather than be finding out by email. President Bahr was really comforting and friendly. I hope everything is alright with Grandpa, I hope he hasn't taken it too hard.


I've been doing well here, I'm still working hard. Sorry this week's email is going to be short, my hands are a little sore, I wrote a long email to Nick. I've been doing well, this last week we got 11 hours of knocking in. The whole time we only got into 2 doors, it was a little discouraging, but we did find two people who we think were ready to hear the gospel. This week wasn't one of our best number-wise, but we have been making some good success.

Oh, I also want to tell you a neat experience. This week we picked up Wilmur as an investigator. Elder Barker and Elder Wilcox had dropped him before, and we just started teaching him again. He's read the entire Book of Mormon once before, and he has a really intense desire to learn, but we need to help him gain a testimony. We have a few speed bumps to get over, but I hope he'll be baptized soon.
We actually will be having a baptismal service this week. The English Elders have an investigator being baptized this week! It'll be pretty neat.

Well, I better go, love you all.
Isaac

December 3rd - 3 weeks in the field

Hi everyone!
So, I'm on time this week, no random closure of the library this week. I've been doing well here in Rockland County, it's been great.
So, I wasn't very clear when I was talking about Marina. She was actually just here on vacation, and was visiting one of our less actives Noelia. Elder Barker and Wilson had met her and started teaching her, and after I came into the area she really started to progress. She was a really neat lady, and her two kids, Junior and Cristina. They left to go back home to Guatemala, they were only here for a short time, but I'm really glad I got to know her. They'll be baptized for sure in Guatemala.
The Martinez family is also getting pretty close to baptism. The mother, Juana, and the two children, Moisés and Cristina, came to church this last week. Juana wants to get baptized, but doesn't want to be alone in her family in the church. The Father has absolutely no interest, and Moisés loved it this week, but we are really focusing on getting Cristina, the daughter whose 17, moving towards baptism. If we can get Cristina to be baptized the whole family will follow.

We actually had 5 investigators at church this last Sunday! The three from the Martinez family, Brother Peña came this week and also Miguel Martinez opened his mission call in Sacrament this last week, and his mother, who is not a member, came to church the week. The Spanish Sunday School class, which is usually just Brother Romero, Sister Peña, and Elder Barker and I, was really awesome this week! I still didn't really understand it though. Spanish is really tough for me still.... but I'm learning.

Letter from President Bahr

Isaac's mission President wrote us a very nice letter when he first arrived in New Jersey. He included this picture of Isaac with President and Sister Bahr. Admittedly, I shed a few tears when we received this. Happy tears though because it felt great to see Isaac looking so happy!

Thanksgiving in the mission field

Yesterday we had 3 thanksgiving meals, I came home so stuffed. We had some really good food though, some of it was traditional American thanksgiving type food, but others was traditional hispanic food. At one we had this really good Rice and Beans dish from the DR with the Peña family. At Brother Romero's house we had this really tasty rice dish that tasted kind of like fried rice. At Marina's house we had this really tasty Salsa Ranchero turkey with this really tasty Potato beef spicey dish that was really good. I tried to pace myself, but I still ate too much

This week we had amazing success, we had 7 new investigators! We also are saying goodbye to Marina, who is going back to Guatemala tomorow, if we had 2 more weeks with her she would be baptized, I know it.

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. ”

—John F. Kennedy (1917-1963); Thirty-fifth President of the United States

Isaac is off on his mission!

Just to let you know that Isaac is officially off on his mission. We took him today to the MTC. It was a neat, but teary experience for us all.