December 2, 2013

Dear Family,

  Thanksgiving was good. We did service by raking up tons of leaves.
Literally like 12 bags. We only had 2 dinners planned but ended up
eating at 4 houses but I sparred my companion and helped avoid the
HUGE meals. It was a good day though. We did the service, ate, and
spent time with the members.
  The week went a little slow due to the holiday. However with this
one lady Meybel, she is the one that has been reading but we haven't
been able to meet her boyfriend. We found out this week that he is
semi-interested in the message. He also found out that his divorce is
coming through and will be done in January! Hopefully if I stay here
we can have a marriage and a baptism that month. The other family
hasn't been looking very promising. Only their 16 year old son has
been working towards living the gospel. The mom of the family however
is taking english lessons from the service missionaries so at least
the support is there from the ward.
  The district is doing well. A bit slower due to thanksgiving but one
companionship had 2 baptisms which was good! They were miracle
baptisms because the mom out of the blue just wanted to come back to
church with her unbaptized teenagers. We're going to improve though.
  So my district is me and my companion, a companionship of sisters,
another companionship of english missionaries and one more of spanish
missionaries. 8 missionaries total and every single companionship is
training missionaries on their first or second transfers.
  Temple square is available to us but really only for tours with the
sister missionaries there. However we just set up tours starting at 4
and just stick around and look at the lights. Haha. We can also get
tickets to the spanish performances (Luz de las naciones) but we won't
be going since our investigator can't get time off but it's alright.
  Thanks for all the support from home. Just know that I'm doing well
and I'm now accustomed to the cold weather! Love y'all alot!

Elder Parks