January 2, 2012

Dear Everybody,

This week has been chock full of miracles. I will share my favorite. First off, was Anna Ayala. Anna was found by the Spanish missionaries, and they were trying to begin teaching, but Anna’s mom got sick and went to the hospital. She has been in the hospital for the past 3 weeks, and Anna has been spending all of her time there. The sisters knew that Anna’s mom was sick, but they couldn't get a hold of Anna, so they passed her on to us (seeing as she understands English better anyways). We dropped by one night to see if we could catch her home. It just so happened that the night we dropped by, was the first night in the 3 weeks she was home. She had just picked up the phone to call Sisters Benson and Rodriguez. The phone had rung twice when we knocked on the door. Needless to say, when she opened the door she just stared at us like deer in the headlights. Just the moment when she had thought to call the sisters, we knocked on her door. We were kind of confused when she opened the door and her face just got pale. She had also called her church earlier that day and asked them to send the priests to her mom to give her mom a blessing. They were going to charge her 150 dollars to go to the hospital and give her mom a blessing! How crazy is that? Well, all those things added up, and she basically told us that she knew exactly what she needed to do, and what God wants her to do, she is just nervous to do it.

This week President Durrant took us to the BYU game at SMU. It was a great game! Incredible seats, and we couldn't have asked for better outcome of the game. They won in the last minute of the game. It was awesome!
On December 31st we also had the baptism of Mark Mahecha. He has been waiting for baptism for about a month now, and we were finally able to get all of our ducks in line so we could get the baptism done. It was a great service and the spirit was very strong. Hooray for baptisms!

So I am also going to be TRANSFERRED! I am going to be serving in Tyler Texas. It is a little ways out East. It is a bit of a somber moment. I have really grown to love the wards and the investigators here and I am really going to miss Lake Highlands and Garland 1st. Farewell.

On to new adventures in Tyler. My new companion, Elder Johnson and I are going to be doubled up out there. Elder Johnson is a great missionary, I know him pretty well because for the last 6 months we have been serving in the same zone. We are both looking forward to being companions. I imagine for the first week or two, it might just feel like another exchange. Lol.
It is hard saying goodbye to all the people here, but it will be a great experience in Tyler.

Love y'all, and have a great week!

Elder Layton