Milagros, Build the Wall

Lunch today with the Office elders!

Hi everyone!!!

We had another crazy week here in the offices dealing with some missionaries going home, getting flights, housing and all of that taken care of, but luckily things calmed down a little bit at the end of the week, and we were able to see some miracles in our area!!!

First off, we had our first official lesson with Jose Luis this past week, and he is so awesome!! He hasn’t been able to come to church yet, but he told us about how he had talked to the missionaries before and how much he loves the Mormons! Hopefully we can get him to church and help him enter the waters of baptism!!

We were having kind of a long week, with not a ton of citas (appointments), and lots and lots of street contacting and knocking doors. Well, the problem is that here in the center, it’s a VERY different dynamic than my first two areas. It’s extremely urban, so we don’t have a lot of neighborhoods that we can actually knock doors, and the majority of the people in the streets don’t live in our area. We had knocked doors basically all day, and we had seen almost no success. We were almost to our area limit, and we decided to knock one more door before heading to the other side of our area for a cita, and a family let us in, accepted a Book of Mormon, and get this, CAME TO CHURCH THE NEXT DAY!!! When we were leaving from the cita, Elder Lozano were walking away, and quietly saying, "tranquilo, tranquilo...." (quiet, quiet) and the second we rounded the corner, we just started fistpumping and celebrating, the whole 9 yards haha. We were so excited to see a miracle here in the area!!

So here’s my funny/interesting story of the week. So for those of you who don’t know, my companion is Elder Lozano, (still haven’t had an American comp yet, which has been a huge blessing for my Spanish, haha), and he is from Juarez, Mexico. Well, when people ask us where we are from, they think it’s just the funniest thing in the world that an American and a Mexican are companions, and just start up with all sorts of border/wall jokes (thanks Trump...). The good news is that we know how to play it off, and we joke that there is a wall between our beds in our apartment.

Thank you all for your continued support!! I love hearing from you all, and I pray you all have a great week! Remember that General Conference is in a few short weeks, and to prepare to receive revelation from our new prophet!

Con mucho amor, Elder Christian Duvall Newman

Mom, What a cool experience to go to the temple with Sarah for the first time!! Sounds like a memorable experience, and thank you for that verse! 2nd Nephi has always been one of my favorite chapters! Love you Mom!!

Dad, Looks like the room you so graciously let me sleep in has taken on some serious upgrades!! Glad you are feeling better now!! Love you dad!!

Callie, sounds like someone is one smart girl! Nice job on your report card!! How exciting for a new cousin!! Some one tell Uncle Taylor he just needs one more girl and he can have an entire basketball team!;) Love you Callie!!!

Emma, ohhhhhhhhh my goodness, you went to the Pie?? lucky lucky girl... And of course you had to get out the oars on the hills for Karen haha. Hope you had a great ACT, praying for that 31!! Love you sis!!

Sarah, How exciting to go to the temple for the first time! Im sure you enjoyed sweeto burrito alot, especially since this time you got to eat;). Great job in your basketball tourney! Love you tons sis!!


Mom’s Questions:

1. How goes the office duties in week 2? Getting the hang of things? 

Yep!! Getting the hang of things, definitely been a trial and error experience, haha.

2. Are you finding time to teach in the evenings? 

Yes, we have the goal to get out of the offices at 4, but its usually closer to 5 with how crazy it’s been

3. Tell us about your companion. What is he like? What is your favorite thing about him?

Elder Lozano is awesome!!! He is super funny, super outgoing, and the thing I love about him is his ability to laugh off the hard stuff that comes our way!

4. How is Jose coming along? 

He's super awesome!! Just need to get him to church!

5. I heard a rumor that the Bolivian mail service has been shut down. Any truth to this? Do you know when they will be back up and running? I had a package I wanted to start putting together to send to you, but I’ll hold off on it until you say it’s safe to send things again.

Yeah we have heard that it’s some sort of work strike, but we don’t know a ton about what’s going on. I’ll keep you posted.​​​​