It has been a while since we have written how we are doing.  The reason for that is we have been sick.  It started in our branch, a sore throat and then a very bad head cold.  Steve got if first and of course he shared it with me.  For some reason I got it worse and it really knocked me for a loop.  I got an earache and my ear drum broke, had stuff draining out my ear.  And now I have lost all hearing in that ear.  I was getting better and then I did something to my knee.  That started before we left for our mission and it has just gotten worse.  We helped some members move and the next day I couldn’t even put my weight on my leg.  So Steve is babying me today.  Cold and then hot compresses and in between stretch exercises.  I really feel like a wimp. 

We have really been working with the in-actives.  We have really been having success with the Spanish speaking members.  It really is hard on them to come to church, sit thru Sacrament meeting that they don’t understand very well, then they go to a Spanish speaking Sunday school class, and then sit thru priesthood and Relief Society and not understand much what is being said.  Elder Berger is getting better all the time with his Spanish.  He is being tutored twice a week by the MTC in Provo.  They skype with him, one is a grammar coach and the other is speaking the language.  Sister Wright keeps saying “Hermano Berger, you speaking with an English accent, you need to speak with a Spanish accent.”  We taught the first discussion to a Spanish speaking family.  The father was baptized but the mother and children have not been.  We took a Spanish speaking member with us, but it was still difficult to have the member understand what we were saying so she could explain it to the sister.  The kids speak English and they love coming to church and they want to be baptized, one is 12 and the girl is 14.

We have been working on the branch membership roster.  Some of the names we have found, say that they haven’t lived there for over a year.  Others don’t even know who they were.  We take some of the less actives and have them help us find addresses.  We get to know them and it seems to help them want to come to church.

 Thanksgiving was a little different than being home.  We invited what we call the Del Sol girls, they are girls from Utah that are here for an internship with Del Sol.  At the last minute, 3:30 they cancelled.  Said they were not coming.  So we took everything and went over to a members house (Karlene & Jason Markham’s).  They just have two children, so we had 10 pies and only 6 of us.  But we were so grateful for them.  It made home a little closer.

We are making plans on going to St John Island.  That is part of our branch and we have in-actives that live there.  We will have to take the ferry over and we will also take our car.  It is only $10.00 more to take the car with us.  We have asked if we can stay the night so that we can have two days to look for these people.  Waiting to hear from the mission president.  They told us that we will be having a Sr Missionary Conference in January in Puerto Rico, so that will be good to look forward to,

It has been fun to Skype with the kids.  We keep in touch with phone calls, emails, Facebook, letters, and packages.  It makes it seem like we are not so far away.  Although we hear it has turned cold in Utah.  Our weather has turned so nice.  The humidity is still very high, but we don’t have all the fans and things going that we used to.  The water is so beautiful here and we do have a wonderful view of the beach and the ocean.

We are helping schedule the branch to go Christmas caroling at an old folks home.  Tried to talk the RS president in having refreshments after….just seems like work to her.  She doesn’t usually have any help and she does it herself.  Tried to convince her to use some of the less actives.  She just says they don’t know how.  They don’t get it, that shadow leadership really works.  We will see how things all come out.  Until then, be good and we will talk to you next week.