Ringing in 2011
Hugs and Kisses for a member
A NY Sunset


Hey Family!

How is everyone doing? Thank you again to all who sent me presents and letters. That was GREAT! It always seems that towards the end of a missionaries mission the letters die down so that was GREAT to get bombarded with love from home. Thanks!

Things have been going really well here. I love being a missionary, I love working, I love...I LOVE IT ALL!!! This last week was really good. I really felt the strength of the Lord to do all that I needed to and work hard. Every night I have gone to bed exhausted but it has felt really good. Hermana Sorenson is awesome. She goes home next transfer...in 10 weeks and wants to really go out strong. I am so grateful she is here. She's funny too. We laugh a lot. On Tuesday the buses were still not running how they normally do. Things have been running slow because of all the snow. SO MUCH SNOW!!! We had an apt at a members home at night in Ozone Park. We waited for the bus for about 20-30 min and then decided to do what I call, "musical buses". Where you start walking wherever you need to go along the bus rout and if a bus comes you hop on it. Well, we ended up walking all the way home and it took us an hour! The best part was we just told funny stories the whole time while we were walking and laughed our heads off the whole way home.

Yesterday we fasted with Ro*. She is going really well. I was really worried that she was slowing down her progression, she was but its picked right back up. We had gone over to teach her and she was at 2 Ne 13 and the next day we went over, four days later she was already in Jacob! She learns very well by reading. I know she will be baptized someday. We fasted with her that we would be able to begin working with her husband and/or he will want to get married so Ro* can be baptized. We have an appointment with her tonight to see how it went for her. She is having a hard time being able to make it to all 3 hours of church now that church starts at 1. She has to work on Sundays. We'll praying for her.

We are also working with Cl*. She is ALSO an investigator from English Class. She hasn't been progressing. We've taught her about 4 or 5 times now. She was going to come to church yesterday and when we called to ask her if we could pick her up she said she couldn't make it because all of her family was over. I was really sad about it but she promised to come to church next week. We went to church and were talking to members before church started and...SHE SHOWED UP!!! She decided that her kids who are adults weren't being so fun so she decided to come to church. She didn't even tell them where she went, she just left. She stayed for all of sacrament meeting and then went home. We will be meeting with her Tuesday with Sister Nelson, she is going to come teaching with us before our Presidents Interviews.

We also have a couple other people that we are doing our best to work with. Hna Sorenson was serving in Flushing before she came back here to Richmond Hill. In Flushing, about 5 mo ago she talked to a man on the bus. All of his family are members of the Church except him. He feels that the true church is either our church or one other church. He has not received an answer yet but is looking. Hna Sorenson wasn't able to get his info that night nor give her info to him. But she decided she was going to pray for him and that some day he would be taught. Guess who showed up in our Chapel yesterday, Ed*, that man. Miracles are all around us. I have really seen a lot of progress here and within myself. These last 5 mo have been incredible. I have learned more than I ever thought and I am eternally grateful for them. Even though things are and have been hard I love this work, I love my life. Its not easy but its great. I keep telling Hna Sorenson that its like getting back on the horse.

New Years was really good. One thing that has really surprised me is that we had more people tell us happy new year than Merry Christmas. We didn't do anything really special. We had to be back in our apts by 6, do our weekly planning which was really fun. We planned but also ended up talking about some funny things and just started laughing again. We also ordered Chinese which was really good. I haven't had any since Hna Winfield went home.

Our mission has a goal to read the Book of Mormon in the first 5 mo of the year and mark all the references of Christ and His words. It has been really neat for me. I have been learning so much. That is one thing that I've learned lately. There are so many things we can learn from the Book of Mormon. The hardest part is to actually read it. We hold it in our hands, let it sit on our destk and so forth, we need to READ it. As a missionary that is our greatest tool, the Book of Mormon. If everyone read the Book of Mormon, member, investigator, and less-active, things would explode!

I have felt so much love of our Father in Heaven for the people here and for myself. I love being here. This last week was really good and I have high hopes for this coming week. Thank you so much for all of your love and support. I love all of you very much. I will be praying for all of you!

Love,

Hermana Banaszewski