Don't Drink Drugs

WOOH! First off happy five mesaversay! I can't believe I left in July and now it's December.....ees craysee. Oh yeah by the way thought you should know that I have officially adopted espeaking in a nacho librean accent and I can only see it getting even theecker as the months go on sooo family you can prepare yourselves for that when I talk to you guys on Christmas! Oh yeah speaking of Christmas....I hope everyone has seen the He is the Gift video that the church published at the beginning of December! They are making a big push to get everyone possible to see it. We got special pass along cards and we have to hand out a certain number every day and we pretty much show it on our iPads to anyone who lets us! Haha except there's one tiny problem. So in Spanish it's called "El es la Dádiva" and turns out that no one even knows what the word Dádiva means....wouldn't be so bad if that wasn't like the entire focus of the 3 minute movie. We think it's the word for gift from Spain...Spanish Spanish is pretty weird. You'd think they would have studied up how to speak the language before they named their entire country after it. Just keeding. I love it so much though. It's so short and to the point, Christ is the gift of Christmas. And Christ is everything good in the world, He is hope, he is faith, he is light. At the end it says to Discover the gift, Embrace the Gift, and share the Gift. If you don't feel like you have a personal relationship with our Savior- Discover the gift. If you know about Jesus Christ but haven't felt his light and love in your life- Embrace the Gift. If you do have a personal relationship with Him, and know for yourself of the peace and happiness He can bring- Share the gift. Whether you are discovering, embracing or sharing, do something this Christmas to remember the Gift that our father in heaven gave to us. I also got to watch the Christmas devotional last night! If you haven't seen it I highly recommend it. I loved elder christophersons talk. He talked a lot about the condescension of Christ and how he had to submit below all things so that He could rise above all things. It's because of this that he knows us perfectly, has perfect mercy and knows how to comfort us perfectly. He compared this to us and how we too are spirit children of God, and how we have to descend below all things sometimes to be able to rise above them, gain understanding, rely on our savior and learn how to comfort others.

- okay so for this week I thought I'd just share some quick funny little stories..

- We went over to teach our recent convert Emely ( one of the little girls that got baptized) and got there a little early and her mom and grandma were in the kitchen cooking so we decided to help them! I got to learn how to make Sopes which are my favorite food I've eaten here...they are like thick fried corn tortillas with frijoles, queso fresco, crema, and salsa verde on them. Lots of salsa verde. I love spicy stuff now! Its funny how you really do have to get used to it. Gibson is still in the getting used to it stage...she took some bites with the salsa verde and she started sweating and her face turned red and she couldn't stop coughing haha it was actually pretty funny. But anyways so when Emely finally got there we taught her about the gospel of Jesus Christ again and i was talking about having faith in Jesus Christ and God and I said " we can have faith in God because he can do anything"  and she goes " yeah like speak Chinese!" Yes Emely. Of all the great things He can do, speaking Chinese is at the top of the list. Then we asked her, do you remember what you promised Heavenly Father when you were baptized? " Yeah, DONT DRINK DRUGS" amen Emely, amen. We taught her well.

- We met this girl named Maria ( SURPRISE) at Acapulco( the Mexican tienda we have here) a few weeks ago and she's awesome! She's 22 and from Cuba and we're all like friends now since we go there so often. She loves seeing us. We were able to go over to her house the other night and turns out she has the cutest 4 yr old boy ever! And he speaks Spanish! It's so cute to me because I'm so used to the kids not really speaking Spanish here because they've all learned English in school and can really only understand the Spanish their parents speak to them (which is really sad to me). And they just recently moved from Cuba so he hasn't learned very much English yet. But he's so smart. Like while he was talking to me Hna gibson whispered "what did he say?" To me and Ichigo (the little boy) turned to her and just whipped out "You speak English?!" It was pretty funny since he hadn't said any English before then. I'm not used to speaking to kids in Spanish though and it was hard for me because you use a different form when you talk to children and I kept switching back to the formal Spanish every time I'd start talking to him. I'm excited to go back and visit them again though!

- Adriana is doing really well! We are still planning on having her baptism this Saturday and she has been practicing for the interview questions every day. She's probably the most prepared person I've ever taught she knows this stuff so well. I'm so excited for her...pray

that everything will go as planned for her baptism!

Everything is going well here in Bradenton! I love my Savior, I love this work, I love these people. I'm so greatful that I have this opportunity to be a missionary, to learn and to grow more in this gospel every day. I love you all and I hope you have a wonderful week, WATCH HE IS THE GIFT AND SHARE IT WITH EVERYONE YOU KNOW. that is all. Love you!

Hermana Baugh