Maligayang Pasko!!!! Feliz Navidad!! 12/23/13

Christmas is riiiiiight around the corner!! How exciting! :) :D

So, as a little background on how missionary leadership goes, I'll kind of explain the line of authority.. so there is Mission President at the top (President Gillette) and then the Assistants to the President (just one companionship) then there are Zone Leaders who are over about 20-30 sisters (right now mine are Sister Loisotto from Argentina and Sister Magaoay from Hawaii) and then there is a District Leader who is over 4-6 sisters (mine is Sister Vargas from Mexico/Texas) then so on to a trainer, senior companion, etc... so the reason why I explain that is so you understand what I mean when I say someone is in my district, or zone, or if there is an activity. etc. :) Just want to make sure you understand that all! Haha.. today we have a zone activity where we are making crepes and watching a Christmas movie :)) I'm really excited for it too! President was telling me that we have all these super fun activities planned for Christmas and that we are going to be fed dinner Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. :D Oh and we also got to go to a local members house for dinner and wow!!!! It was so delicious. Sister Retuta and I were so full when we got home that we felt sick.. hahaha. but we have to take advantage when we get the change. That doesn't always happen!! I attached a picture of all the sisters that went to this family's home.:)

So in regards to my week... this week has been a little bit slow, but we've been working extra hard and even re-evaluated what we could work on to be more obedient, etc and yesterday we saw so many miracles! It was so refreshing and honestly really exciting. It snowed a loooott on Thursday.. So much so that President Gillette said it was necessary to close down Temple Square. So we basically had like a snow day on Thursday! I honestly really didn't want to go home because honestly, so boring... but we had no other choice because Temple Square is our proselyting area and all the buildings were shut down... While other sisters in our apartment building were watching movies and things I told Sister Retuta I refused to waste the Lord's time. I felt so useless for the rest of the day.. I couldn't e-mail anyone or call anyone because we dont have computers... so I just made some food, did a personal study, and we did companionship study and worked on some of Sister Retuta's training that we needed to catch up on.. :D It was definitely a pretty successful day. And we did have fun chatting a little with some other sisters and eating some brazilian desserts. :) I love Temple Square!

So I bet you're all curious to know what happened with Dustin!! And well, I'm excited to share!!! So, we kind of bribed him to come to Temple Square and said that we had a present for him and he agreed to come back the following day!!! We were like "whoa!!! that was sooo easy!!!" hahaha!!! We just bought him a little Utah Truffle chocolate thing, gave him a christmas card that we made, and gave him a Book of Mormon.. :D I mean, really... he told us he knew it wasn't going to be anything big... but he came! And that's the most important thing. OH!!! And he took of his bullet belt this time after we begged and pleaded for him to understand that security would probably confront him again if he came wearing it... so progresss!!! wooooo!! Anyways, we took him to the bottom part of the North Visitors Center... and explained to him about the Restoration of the original church of Jesus Christ...How after centuries of being lost, original truths of God (the gospel of Jesus Christ) have been restored by a loving God through a living prophet. And that the evidence of this is the Book of Mormon. The invitation we extend to all people is to read the Book of Mormon, ponder it in their heart, and pray about to learn its truth for themselves. I'm not sure if I've ever really explained what the Book of Mormon is.. I know I mention it a whole lot... but basically, we believe the Book of Mormon to be a sacred volume of scripture, similar to the Bible... that in the Bible we learn about God's dealings with the people in Ancient Jerusalem and that side of the world, but the question we usually pose is What about the people living in the ancient Americas.. Doesn't God love them too? If he called prophets to lead and guide his people on that side of the world, why wouldn't he do it in this part of the world? Well, we believe that He did... and that the prophets in the ancient Americas recorded their revelation they received from God as well as the history as well. The most important part of the Book of Mormon is that it is another testament of our Savior, Jesus Christ... & honestly he's the center of our everything.. Even the name of our faith. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints --- we believe today Christ is leading and directing this church through a living prophet. And so, back to Dustin... he was SO enlightened with our message and said that he looks forward to reading and praying about the Book of Mormon. He wants to know if our message is true because if it is, that's a pretty big deal! He is already beginning to soften his heart as we explain why we were so persistent in having him hear what we have to say. It can and will change his life if he does what he should to find out if it is true..

We also had a wonderful experience with Stephen Hughes.. the one who was baptized November 2nd, from Tennessee.. the one who 17 missionaries help guide him.. at one point was passing out anti-mormon stuff outside of Temple Square.. well, he is going home for Christmas and before he left he came to visit us at Westgate. So we are there at the window and he's expressing his concern that he hasn't told his family he was baptized and he's nervous because the last time he was home he was telling them how he was going to basically 'destroy' our faith and that he would never ever join us, etc... and he didn't know what to say when they asked him certain questions. So what we did was ROLE PLAY!!! <3 Haha, If you're a missionary right now, I'm sure you do a lot of this. We role play a lot of things and pretend to have different situations, how we would respond to difficult questions, teaching certain principles, etc... & He wanted to know how to explain the Temple... So Sister Retuta and I are sitting at the Westgate window pretending to be members of other denominations in the south & he was AMAZING!!!!! It was such an awesome role play. Sister Retuta even told me after "oh my goodness I wish i would have taken notes!" haha..!! And so, that was really great but then he tells us that he bought 17 Book of Mormon's (one for each missionary that has helped him) and he wrote his testimony in each of them and also put a pamphlet on Joseph Smith inside each one.. He plans on giving them all away to his family and friends when he is in Tennessee and wow! We were just amazed as his change of heart. It has been the most wonderful experience seeing how this gospel has transformed him. Ahhh! Church is true! <3

Yesterday was a really awesome day as well. We are on the square until 10 Sundays and are at this assignment and within that ONE hour that we were there we found 2 new investigators (people who are interested in learning more) and 1 of them is from Chicago and the other lives in Mexico but was with family who is from Chicago!! Way cool!!! :D I am so excited!!!

Well, that's all I have for today.. But I want you all to know that I hope you have a fabulous Christmas and that you remember to center it on our Savior. 

"Christ is the reason for the season!" and we need to remember that. Remember that cute little baby and imagine him in his little manger wrapped in swaddling clothes. I love Jesus and I cant wait to see him again one day!! Read Luke 2 alone or as a family!! 

Here is a cute 7 minute video depicting Christ's birth. Enjoy!
http://www.mormonchannel.org/bible-videos?v=2893093383001

Love you all!! Enjoy my Christmas card & remember to smile & be Christ-like!!!!

Love,
Sister Corina Selene Cuevas!