Hello Family!
Thank you for all the letters and Christmas love! Our (Stripling Warriors Hideout) apartment now has a pretty good Christmas feel to it with all the lights lining the walls and 3 of us received little trees so we have placed them all in our living room! Way sweet! Something weird about California is that they don't have any overhead lights... we just have to use lamps but now we replaced them with all our Christmas lights and trees so when we walk in and flip the switch our apartment lights up with Christmas spirit! Thank you for everything you guys are doing and for your thoughts! They give me a HUGE boost every Monday! Thank you.
So Yesterday was Erin Castillo's baptism! We were stressing about it all week because we are in charge of making sure everything is taken care of and runs smoothly, we felt a lot of pressure, but as always it turned out perfect and was exactly amazing. The Castillo family is by far one of my favorite families out here! They even had their family fly in for the baptism! We had a huge turn out from all their family and the ward attending. They are all super strong and spiritually awesome. We made sure each one of the Castillo's was involved in the baptism. Brother Manriquez, our ward mission leader, (The MOST AWESOME MISSION LEADER EVER!) conducted and set the atmosphere extremely well (He got baptized a year ago and is "so legit" ha-ha, probably barely 30 yrs old). Then, Ben (10yr old) started out with the talk on baptism and delivered such a great message. Then Erin and I proceeded to do the baptism and it worked perfectly. Then while we were changing, Jeremy Castillo said a few words and we came back into the room to find everyone filled with tears and Jeremy upfront crying. The Spirit was so strong! Then to top it all off, little Sarah said the closing prayer and got up there and said "Dear Heavenly Father thank you for Erin to be baptized... (Then started bawling and you couldn't even hear what her little voice was trying to say for like 2 minutes... then she just said in the name of Jesus Christ amen." SO CUTE! No better way to finish off a great baptism day.
Oh and Abby, P.S. she told me, "Elder Brady, I'm sorry I haven't written your sister yet..."ha-ha so, Sarah should be sending a letter to you soon Abby!
So that's pretty much all the big new for this week except we found another awesome lady whose name is Miracle and she is a single mother with like 5 kids! She calls us all the time and feels like we are the only ones that she has to listen to her, so we just go over and she just lets everything out and we try our best to help her. Yesterday we were over at Miracle's and she was reaching across the table to hold our hands and told us that you guys don't know how much I need you right now and we all just started crying. I see such a bright future for Miracle and her family and they want to be baptized as well! But we are going to take things slow with her cause she is struggling right now. When we leave we kneel down and all the kids run up to us and give us big hugs and say "BYE DA MISSHHONARDIES!" This is what a mission is all about :) Just melts our heart every time. We are probably going to go over and help her clean her house today.
This week: We are having Zone Conference this tomorrow and we all get to go to the Los Angeles Temple on Thursday! SOO EXCITED! Sister Kabel is going to give Sister Brown, Sister Mix, Elder Ludlow and I a ride up there! I love Sister Kabel. We call her Grandma Kabel and she takes such good care of us. Easily one of my favorite ladies in the ward. Grandma Kabel took us to the chiropractor and spent a day with her last week because something was wrong with Ludlow's sinuses and he is very stuffed up for like the past ...7 YEARS of his life... so yeah. Ha-ha Grandma Kabel is trying to fix him. We love her so much. I have become very attached to the people out here in Lancaster. Maybe since I’ve been here for 1/2 a year and it's exactly where Heavenly Father wants me and I feel like I was destined to know these people. The Right thing, Right Place, Right time for sure.
Well I have to get going but I believe we can call you for free from a member’s house or cell phone on Christmas day. We still don't know what time but don't worry, we'll surprise you! :D
Until next time, I love you guys and hope you all have a great week!
Love, Elder Brady
---NO REGRETS---
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