Happy New Year!

Well, we are officially into 2013...the year that I will be a missionary the WHOLE year! So crazy to think about! This past week has been a great one. It was so good to see everyone's faces on Christmas Day, and it pumped me up to go out and do the work! Sounds weird to say that talking to people at home gets me focused instead of distracted, but I think it just gave me a good boost! We had a fairly uneventful New Years Eve (obviously) but we cleaned all of the Christmas decorations out of the TC after it closed at 4.

Tomorrow is transfers, so all morning we kind of tried to ignore the phone while at the same time tried to STARE at the phone just waiting to see who is going where...so funny that we get so nervous, but we do! There were about a billion possibilities, so we had absolutely no idea what was going to happen. Funny thing is....the last option either of us thought would happen is what ended up happening! We are staying together as companions in Lakeview! We are both really excited, we love the area and the ward and feel really blessed to be here! This is Sister Coats' last transfer, and missionaries in our mission aren't allowed to drive their last transfer, so HALLELUJAH, I'm driving starting tomorrow! I am so excited because it is really hard to figure out all the different ways to get places when you don't drive. I am really excited! There have been a lot of changes in the mission, with 5 sisters going home tomorrow and 5 that got here today! I just met them, and am so excited to spend the next year and a half getting to know them better! It will be interesting to see what changes happen this next transfer with the new Trail Center director coming in and all the "older" sisters leaving in the next few transfers! Sister Whittaker is staying in her area, but her companion is going home tomorrow to St. George, so she will be with Sister Graham now!

Well, Brother Hall's baptism was this past Friday!!!! I can't even begin to tell you how great that day was. At first I was a little nervous because I was not feeling very good right before the service, and then the Stake President showed up, and THEN the 2nd counselor in the mission presidency showed up, and I was supposed to be teaching the Restoration of the Gospel while Mike was changing back into his clothes after he was baptized. Not to mention the fact that his 2 daughters and sister who are of other faiths were also at the baptism. It's amazing to see, though, what happens when you let Heavenly Father be in charge, because that baptism was INCREDIBLE. When he came out of the font, he told us that he feels like it was a rebirth- like he is a completely new person. When he received the gift of the Holy Ghost on Sunday, he said he felt like Heavenly Father poured something over his head and he could feel it from head to toe! He will be receiving the Aaronic Priesthood on Sunday, and will be going to the temple soon! I wish we could go to the temple with him, but in a year we will be able to!

I forgot to tell you that Matt (the young couple we found) had a Polynesian friend in high school in Kansas City whose last name was Aiono! So crazy! They played football together, and Matt is really athletic, so we speak the same language haha. I love how sports have been an "in" with people because I never thought I would talk about sports on my mission. The other day in District Meeting, my District leader even asked me who my favorite current professional athlete was because he knew how much I loved sports before my mission and he wanted to use it as an analogy!!!

A part-member family that we had Christmas dinner with gave us gift cards to Build a Bear for a present, so today we went to Build-a Bear! Our bears both have Nebraska Husker shirts on and mine has a little football and a bow on her ear. I'm not really a stuffed animal person....at ALL, but it's really cute! Plus, it is a good memory to have, and I will always remember it was from the Granados!

On Christmas we played Speed Scrabble and one of the sisters said that she and her companion play every night after they are done planning!!! Keep an eye out at like Goodwill or DI or places like that for scrabble boards, because I would absolutely LOVE that!

I love you all so much! Hope that you had a Happy New Year and that everything is going well! Have a good semester (for all of you in school) and find someone to share the gospel with!

Love you to the moon and back! I'm "having a good time"!

Love, Sister Farnsworth