January 5, 2015

Dear family and friends! 

Happy New Year! I hope that you had a wonderful week and that you are getting back to your full health! Sicknesses can be no fun! My companion and I are doing well and we don't have any sicknesses right now, so everything is great! We had a full week of visiting people and serving. I want to tell you about one of my favorite families in York. I know that I came on my mission to find them.

They are the Humanes family. They are mostly Spanish speaking but they do speak a little bit of broken English. Hilda, the mother, is a convert of about 6 months now. She is one of the most Christlike individuals that I have ever met. She has had cancer in the past and was in remission, but has now been diagnosed with Leukemia. Rene, the Father, is now set for baptism on January 17th!! It is coming super quick! They all come every week to church. Hilda stood up and bore her testimony in broken English yesterday at church! It was so powerful and I basically just cried the whole time through church:) I had really neat experiences as I was fasting the last 2 sundays:) Last Sunday, the whole branch fasted for Hilda. She also got a priesthood blessing before she had to leave church because she got too sick. She is so amazing. We go to their house often and she started crying to us one time while we were there. We asked her what was wrong and she said that she felt so bad. She was so sick so she was only able to read 2 pages in the Book of Mormon every day, before her strength gave out. This woman has a lot that she could cry about, but the reason for her tears was because she wasn't able to read the Book of Mormon as much as she wanted to. She is so strong! They have several kids over the age of 8 that we are working with and hoping that they will feel ready to be baptized with their dad next week. I love this family so much! Please keep them in your prayers!     

Our New Year's Eve and New Year's day were pretty packed! We had lots of lessons, service, and dinner appointments! We took all of the young women out for ice cream on new years day. We really love focusing on the youth and becoming their friends. We had 2 non member young women come to ice cream with us and the rest of the young women besides 1 were less active! So it was really cool!! 

We are volunteering at an animal shelter called "Adopt-a-Pet" and it is so fun!! They take in any animals that have been abused or that are found on the streets without an owner. We cover the dog area. That was my first time going last week, but when our schedule is open, we are able to go for a little while every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. We get all of them food, take them on walks, play fetch or other things with them, or just pet them and give them lots of love. It is pretty fun!   

I love you all so much and I hope that you have a fantastic week! 

Love, Sister Christensen