KIlled" my Comp

Hola familia y amigos,

   Well, this was Hermana Ewing's last week of the mission! Sadly, we weren't able to have any baptisms together. Josue needs a little more time before he gets baptized. He's struggling to go to church. Please pray for him and his family. 

   I'll admit "killing" Hermana Ewing" made me kinda trunky, ao I'm excited to now be with someone who's a little fresher in the mish. My new comp is...... drum roll please.......   Hermana Orellana from El Salvador! She seems really sweet and her trainer told me she was one of her favorite companions. She has 6 months in the mission. She has an older brother who is finishing his mission in Uruguay and a 12-year-old sister. I hear she makes great pupusas too. Heck to the YES. Maybe we'll do a pupusa activity to reactive the less actives haha. 

   We thought we would have a lot of investigators in church yesterday because Hermana Ewing was telling everyone it was her last Sunday, but we didn't have a single one. Again. We were especially disappointed that Luis and Maura didn't come. We've decided to drop them for a while. When they're ready to follow Christ, they know where to find us. However, we did have some success with some less actives who finally came to church. 

   Anyway, we've gotta do a lot of finding this week. Last week we contacted a lot of internet cafés as part of the "He is the Gift" iniciative and were able to get the addresses of some potentcial investigators. You'll have to know how big of an affect that had in the U.S. I'm interested to know. 

  So there's this big Catholic holiday here  on December 7th called "La Purísima" or " La Gritería", which is a celebration of the virgen Mary. I think it's an even bigger celebration than Christmas. It's crazy. Yesterday, we took a bus to Managua and the whole 2 and a half hour ride they played virgen Mary music with voices that sounded like they came from the "It's a Small World" ride at Disneyland and someone also stood up on the bus and started singing and chanting and trying to get others to join in.. Buuuut, we did get a free apple, juice box, and container full of candy and treats out of it! They started handing out all this free stuff on the bus! Haha, it was great! They must be super rich though because here, apples alone cost a dollar each! 

   So that was my week. Looking forward to getting to know my comp more and see some CHRISTMAS MIRACLES!!. Hope everyone finds a special way to serve someone this Christmas. Love you all! 

Hermana Hawkins