TIRE REPAIRS, A SAVIOR IS BORN, AND THANKSGIVING!

Letter dated 30 November 2015 Dear Family, Well, we are sitting on metal folding chairs in a cement floored, wood walled room at the sketchiest tire place I have ever seen. I LOVE IT! haha. It's called Latino Tires and it's owned by a friend of Brother H, one of our members. It's all Mexican people that work here and it's pretty small and rustic with graffiti all over the back wall where you pull your car in. I actually remember seeing this place a few weeks ago when we were driving home one night. The doors were open into the shop with all the tools everywhere and a couple of cars inside. You could see all the graffiti really brightly contrasted against the dark, dirty colors around it, and there were a few men sitting on buckets and stools in a little group at the back. I remember thinking, "Sketchy," lol. It looked like a scene from a movie, honestly. Anyway, so we are just sitting here waiting for our tire to get patched or whatever they're planning to do. We ran over the mother of all nails last night and when we got up this morning the tire was FLAT. We made a few attempts to change it ourselves and then finally broke down and admitted that we needed a male to give us some help! So Brother Patterson came to the rescue with his son Emerette (almost five years old). Bless their souls! Back at the apartment now. The sketchy Mexican tire place worked out AWESOME and we were even able to give away two A Savior Is Born cards. So it was not unproductive. I am so excited about that initiative! #ASaviorIsBorn. This is going to be the Best Christmas EVER! I decided that the minute I heard about the initiative at MLC. We got to present the initiative to the ward on Sunday and I was so pumped! I hope that some of that enthusiasm rubs off on them. Anyway, to get them going on it we are doing a competition. Whichever family shares it most in a given week will get a plate of homemade cookies or something from us, and whichever family is able to give us a referral from their sharing will get a place of cookies AND four hours of service. Win win! Either way we will get to do service for the members ever week and maybe, in an awesome world, even get some referrals from it! Are the missionaries there doing anything cool to promote it? Thanksgiving was great! TONS of food! We ate 3 Thanksgiving day dinners. One at 2:00 one at 4:00 and one at 6:00. The 2:00 pm one was with a guy named George and his wife and siblings and cousin and stuff. George volunteers at the Mana center which is a food bank that we go to every Tuesday. So that's how we know him. We had gone over to his cousin, Linda's house on Monday night to help her unpack some stuff (she is moving into a new house) and they invited us to come and spend some time on Thanksgiving with them. So we did. We got to show them the video "A Savior Is Born" before we left. The second dinner was with Marla and all her family. She is the manager of the Mana center and she LOVES the missionaries. Anyway, we are hoping to be able to show her the video soon, and maybe get her to start taking the lessons. Pray for us! Pray that we will have an opportunity to share the video with her and that her heart will be open and ready for it. The third dinner we had was with the Pattersons. They are some of our favorite people in the ward. They are just SO awesome. We had an awesome evening with them! Oh my goodness. I love the Pattersons! We had an active member lesson with them last night and then while they fed us pie we went into the music room and they serenaded us with piano, violin, and vocals. It was so awesome! OK back to Thanksgiving for a minute; my favorite part of the day was when we got to do service at the Methodist church. They were serving a free Thanksgiving day meal and so we got to go and help serve the food. Boy was it fun! There is just nothing in this world as wonderful as service! I have decided that I want to do a lot more service when I get home, especially around the holidays. Anyway, I am basically out of time as far as writing stuff down goes now. Preparation day is coming to a close. I hope y'all have an amazing week! Know that I love you and that the gospel is true! It really is! Love Sister Cryer