Hermana McKay Hadley: "Go Tell it on the Mountain"

Hey everyone and Happy December!!!! I hear that its beginning to look a lot like Christmas there in Utah with the snow! That is so exciting!!! Hna. Dunn and I have started to cut out snowflakes to hang in our apartment. Today we went through the car wash, listened to Christmas music and pretended that the white bubbles were snow:).

This week has been a lot of ups and downs... we have been really busy running around or we have felt like we had nothing to do, so we have just knocked doors forever! One of the crazy events that happened was that we kind of had a baptism... it was for an eight-year-old boy so it is not a convert, but we have been working really hard to reactivate this family. We helped with the baptism by doing the programs and many other things. The ward was supposed to help out with all of that but... Spanish wards are not very organized.

We got a call from our Ward Mission Leader about an hour and a half before the baptism and he was a little nervous because no one had started to fill up the font and there were no chairs in the room! AHHHH! We ran over to the church, started the font and set up chairs only to have 4 other missionaries walk in and say, "What are you doing here?" We then told them that our ward had a baptism at 4:30. We then were all freaking out because they had a baptism at 4, another at 5, and a Stake meeting we were helping with at 6.

We found out that our bishop had forgotten to tell the Stake we were going to use the font, but I was bound and determined to get this kid baptized so we did the baptism "Utah Style". We had people in different rooms to start with the hymns and the talks and then us missionaries were the traffic controlllers as we rotated the people through into the room where the baptism font was. Then we filed them out and lead the next group in! It was so, so, so, so, crazy!!! But he got baptized, and so did everyone else that day!

Mom Note: This last paragraph made my heart swell with joy that she reads my letters! This is part of my Stake calling to assist with Baptisms each month. Our Stake easily baptizes 20-25 children on a Saturday and I know that we are breaking the fire code for the Stake Center on those Saturdays. My Presidency feels like air traffic controllers and we are one step away from needing Fluorescent Vests for all of us. This is the exact process that we do and I have written to her in detail about this for months. Hooray for “Utah Style” and my kids do listen to me!!!

Today (Monday) we did things a little different, we did our Zone Activity in the morning. We all drove up to the edge of our mission where the mountains are and we had doughnuts and chocolate milk and then we went on a really fun hike! I was impressed that the whole Zone actually came! The only problem was that nobody brought cups for the chocolate milk! I have a ton of pictures of the hike that I will send today! We sang songs and hiked and just had a lot of fun!

Hope everyone is doing their #Lighttheworld challenges every day! Hna Dunn and I have been doing it and we have seen so many blessings! The other day a lady drove by us and asked us if we knew of anyway we could help her because her husband just left her and she has 2 little boys and no money for anything! We got her information, talked with our ward, and we got a huge bag of food donated that we are going to take to her tonight!!!

I love Christmas!! Everyone is so much more open and friendly! Go and serve and share the Light!! Go tell it on the Mountain (which is what we literally did today haha)

Love ya,

Hermana Hadley

Hermana Dunn, Hermana Hadley and Julio our little 8 year old boy!!! :)

Pizza after Julio's baptism

Listening to Hno. Escobar play the guitar at Nochoe de hogar or Family Home Evening.

Hno. Esobar let me use his guitar to practice and I sang for everyone. I started to teach myself to play just before I left, so I have not played the guitar in 16 months!