CHRISTMAS

Feliz Navidad!

This was a great week because it was CHRISTMAS!!!! I got the best Christmas present of all, to Skype with my family! It was so awesome to get to talk to them. It's hard being away from family at Christmas, but it's great to be a missionary at Christmas time! What better way to celebrate the birth of our Savior than by getting to talk about Him with everyone I see!

skyping with the fam!

We had a great week! Everyone was busy, so it was hard to teach lessons, but we got to be with some awesome members for Christmas Eve and for Christmas! We also had Christmas Conference! The whole mission got together. We had lunch and watched a movie about Christ's birth. We read Luke 2 and President Mortensen talked to us about how we need to be like the shepherds. It was a great day! Hermana Kiser and I, along with three elders in our zone, sang The First Noel/ La Primera Navidad and it went pretty well. 

There is a slideshow on the mission blog at: CLICK HERE

We had a goal as a mission to have 600 convert baptisms this year, which is really high for our mission. We are going to end the year around 550 baptisms (which is still the second highest in the history of the mission.) We came to Christmas Conference a little sad that we hadn't met our goal. President talked to us about the story of Nephi in the Book of Mormon. Nephi thinks he has failed when he goes back to Jerusalem to get the plates. He tries offering his family's wealth to Laban, but Laban takes it and does not give him the plates. He does not obtain the plates in the way he thought he would, he gets the plates because he comes back to find Laban drunk and is able to kill him and put on his clothing. President pointed out to us that Laban was probably drunk because he was celebrating his new wealth. So far this year, 260 of those new converts have taken family names to the temple to perform proxy baptisms. On average each has taken 2.33 names. The new converts did 606 baptisms. 606 people on the other side of the veil have had the opportunity to accept those baptisms. President talked to us about how the work we do here leads to work we cannot see. Those new converts will share the restored gospel with their friends, they will raise their kids in the gospel, they will go on missions, and they will continue to go to the temple. The work will keep moving forward!

Christmas and Christmas Eve were great! We visited a lot of people who all gave us tamales! We had a combined sacrament meeting with both the English and Spanish wards, so that was interesting. It was mostly done in Spanish and there was a translator. People just sang the hymns in whatever language they wanted to.


I love you all and hope you had a merry Christmas and a happy new year! (I get to start off the new year by speaking in both the English and Spanish sacrament meetings)

Love,


Hermana Bettridge

Lots of pics this week!

1. My two companions from the mission, who were companions before I got here! (I got to see all my friends at Christmas Conference!)
2. Hermana Kiser and my friends from College Station!
3. Hermana Kiser and I! (Note the matching shoes!)
4. Hermana Sheirbon and I!
5. My old district! (I miss them a lot!)
6. How we really act!
7. Hermana Taylor, my MTC companion
8. Hna Andreasen, one of my MTC district friends!
9. Hermana Kiser and I found a cool house that made a dragon out of lights
10. The missionaries that meet in my building all jumping after church on Sunday because we got to skype our families!
11. The Sanchez family! One of my favorite families here! They invited us over on Christmas for brunch after church. 

🎄 Feliz Navidad🎄

🎄 Feliz Navidad🎄 

Hello!


No one got baptized this week, but it was still pretty good! ;)

We found some cool new people we are teaching.

Yesterday was even a little cold, and I had to wear a jacket!

(The day it snowed in Oklahoma this week it was in the 80s here!)






We are teaching a couple of different families. We found David, Rosa, and their five kids last week (the ones that came to church) and we started teaching them this week.

David is super familiar with the Bible and was excited to learn about the Book of Mormon.

(They have a daughter named Camora which sounds like the hill Cumorah.)

We also found the Salas family knocking. It is a mom and her four kids.

When we shared the First Vision with her she told us she felt a feeling she hadn't felt before and didn't want it to leave.

We committed her and three of the kids to prepare for baptism on January 21st.

There is this really awesome youth, Jackie, that just got baptized a few months ago.

She always comes out with us. Her dad, Jose, and brother, Juan, have been coming to church for a few weeks.

The dad told us he wants to be baptized, so we gave him a Book of Mormon on Sunday and are going to set the date with him this week.


Carol (our recent convert) is the best and comes to (English) lessons with us! We really love her, and her dedication to the gospel.

She sets aside two hours a day to read the Book of Mormon, has almost finished all of the talks from last conference,

and has started reading Daughters in my Kingdom and the Howard W Hunter book.

She really is a fourth floor, last door situation. We prayed at the beginning of last transfer where we should knock.

We felt like we should knock a street called Wellington, which is really long.

We spent like a week knocking, and Carol lives clear on the end.

We started her family history with her so she can go to the temple to be baptized for her ancestors.



Last P Day we went downtown. We went to the science museum and hung out at a park. (See pics above!)


I hope you all have a great Christmas and find ways to make your Christmas Christ centered! 

Check out Mormon.org for some great ideas.


I love you!

Love,

Hermana Bettridge

Hola

Hello!

Ivan got baptized! He told us he was so happy and that he felt the Holy Ghost

This week we ended up dropping everyone, but then it was okay because we found 12 new investigators who are all pretty solid! We met this one cool family on the sidewalk and just gave them an #ILUMINAelMUNDO card because they didn't act interested and then they randomly came to church and brought their four kids! We have a return appointment with them this week.

Us with Santa at the Ward Christmas party. 

Us with Albert at the Mexican, karaoke bar he took us to for dinner

I don't have a ton of time to write today because we are going to the museum with the elders for p day. But, he are some pictures from the week!


Also, here is a video of Hermana Kiser and I practicing for our sacrament meeting performance of "Silent Night." (The performance ended up being 10x better than the video! Which is especially impressive because I taught myself how to play the piano in one week.)

Love you!

Love,

Hermana Bettridge

Six months!!!

HOLA!

Hermana Kiser, Carol and me

Me, Hermana Kiser, Carol and the elder that performed the baptism

This was kind of a hard week for me, but some awesome things happened! The most exciting thing that happened was Carol's baptism! We are so excited she took that step to follow Christ! She was so happy! Also, I will HIT MY SIX MONTH MARK THIS WEEK! I can't believe I am 1/3 done!

This last week Hermana Kiser and I learned how to play the piano so there could be an accompanist at the baptism. It worked out because when Carol was nervous we said "It's okay! We are nervous too! We are playing the piano in public for the first time in our lives and we are nervous too but we're doing it because we love you!" So we played the piano and it wasn't that awful!

Our investigator, Ivan, will be getting baptized this Saturday. He is super excited! His grandma is an active member of the Spanish ward. He is ten and is so cute! A few weeks ago he told us he didn't know if the Book of Mormon was true, so we told him that he needed to pray and ask Heavenly Father. He said he wanted to do it now. He kneeled down and said "Heavenly Father, is the Book of Mormon true? In the name of Jesus Christ, amen." Then he sat in silence for like thirty seconds with his eyes closed and said "It IS true!" Super cute! Yesterday we taught him about missionary work and service and we talked about Ammon (who he thinks is the coolest for the arm chopping) and he asked if he could be a missionary like us one day. We told him "of course!" He said he hopes he gets called to Hawaii. Then I put my tag on him and we learned the song "I Hope They Call Me on a Mission." (See video below)

Natividad, unfortunately, did not get baptized on Saturday because she drank coffee. We are continuing to work with her and we know she can do it!

Houston Spanish North Zone!

We have been loving the #LIGHTtheWORLD initiative! I have loved focusing on serving others in a specific way every day like Christ would! I would encourage everyone to accept the challenge and go to mormon.org to find ideas to serve.

I love you all and hope you have a great week!