Hermana Megan Stoor: FELIZ NAVIDAD

My dear family and friends,

I just wanted to send you a quick little email to wish you all a Merry Christmas! I hope that you all get to enjoy time with your families and that the love of our Savior fills your hearts this Christmas season. I have felt His love so much throughout the last year of my life. I know with every inch of my soul that our Redeemer lives and loves each and every one of you. I hope that you will all take a chance this Christmas to remember the true importance of all that we do. Remember the first and the best gift that we all received when our Father in Heaven sent His son. Every time you see a Christmas light, think of the joy the shepherds must have felt as the promise of the new star was fulfilled. With each gift you open, think of the baby who was wrapped in swaddling clothes who became the Savior of all mankind. Count your blessings this Christmas season. And share your love and the light of Jesus Christ in your home, in your travels, with your friends and those who need of your service #LightTheWorld

I love each and every one of you and send my best wishes from El Salvador!

Hermana Megan Evelyn Stoor

P.S. Enjoy your white Christmas. See you all in 4 months!

Santas reindeer ;)

The Nativity by the courthouse :)

Joseph and Mary...how cute are they :)

And a photo I got last night sitting with Roberto (our investigator) in the street :)

Dad, Mom, Mara, Seth and Shelby,

I am beyond excited to talk to you again this Sunday! It seems like the time has gone by so fast and I can hardly believe that it will be the last time that I will videochat you in my mission. I will be there at 3 to talk with you if Mara can just send me the link :) (2:00 your time) but like always...if i don't get right on...don't worry...some way or another I will make it work :)

This week was full of small successes and always a few disappointments. This week I have a little more time to tell you about my investigators. We are teaching a older man named Roberto Leal. He is 80 years old and is progressing more and more every day. The first time that we went to his house, we met with his grandson and didn't know why, but we felt something special about that house. So, we decided to go back a few days later. We met Roberto and two of his children. Since then, we were able to find the difficulties with each of them and have been teaching the whole family. Roberto is progressing more than the rest, but little by little the family is following. We talked with Roberto about the word of wisdom because a few members that live there close told us that he came home drunk almost every night. (This was about 3 weeks ago) He struggled at first, but when he finally stopped drinking for a few days, he told us he felt really really good, physically and spiritually. He has been coming to church and attending the activities with us and I have seen such a big change in him. He has a light in his smile and eyes now that was never there before. He didn't drink for about 11 days....and then he fell. He went to watch his son play soccer and told us that a few friends had invited him to go out for one drink...so he agreed to ONE. And you know how it is when someone is addicted to something...one turned into 5 and when we showed up Saturday night he was pretty bad. So, yesterday night we went back and we found him sitting on the sidewalk. We sat down with him and asked him how he felt. He said he felt horrible, worse than he had felt before. He was all teary eyed and we could see that it wasn't just a physical pain that he was feeling,, but he was feeling a godly sorrow. We explained the guilt that he was feeling and talked about the Atonement of Christ and its healing power. AND FOR THE SECOND TIME, he agreed to say a prayer with us. (He had never prayed before in his life until Friday and Sunday night.) We prayed together that God could forgive him for his mistake and that He could give him the strength to never do it again. After the prayer, he told us he felt calm and thanked us for helping him change his life. He is preparing for his baptism on the 14th of January. We need lots of prayers for him. :)

We are also teaching another older man named Ramon Ramirez. He is 63...or something like that. He had talked before with the missionaries but told us that he had never had a desire to go to a specific church. The first couple of lessons weren't so great...and I feel like it maybe had to do with the fact that he always answered the door and sat down with us in his underwear and it just made it hard to feel the spirit. But since then, we have asked him to put pants on and everything has changed. He even told us that he felt a big difference in his house when we are there. This last week, he has started to read the Book of Mormon and agreed to pray to know if he should be baptized the 21st of January. I think things will be a little more difficult with him because he is a very political person and has alot of crazy ideas, but I feel something that tells me that he will get there...we just have to be patient.

We are also teaching a young man named Omar Jaco. We had been teaching his sister in law and when we went back, she hid from us...so we made a plan number 2 and started teaching him. He has shown alot of interest in our message! He is reading the Book of Mormon and has never gone to a church before so everything seems so new to him. These last few days he has faced a few difficulties because the sister in law decided to leave his brother and stole everything out of the house...when we went back there was nothing but some dirty clothes that she had left. It is really sad...but I just figure maybe it will open his heart a little more to accept something new in his life.

And one more older man...I like to teach the grandpas :) His name is Romulo Guerra and is around 65 or 75 years old. We made good friends since the beginning because I showed interest in his cows. haha He has a farm and reminds me alot of Sid Thompson so I enjoy teaching him :) He is from the Adventist church...I don't know if that's how you say it in English or not... but they are one of the few churches that believe that the Sabbath day of the Lord is Saturday. He told us that if we can help him to understand why the Sabbath day is Sunday, he will be baptized in our church. So, we are going to teach him tonight about the sacrament and why we partake of the sacrament on the day that Jesus Christ was resurrected. I know a few scriptures from the Bible that explain that the disciples partook of the sacrament on the first day of the week, but what I hope is that he can learn by the spirit and from the Book of Mormon. That way he can gain a little bit of faith without having to read a scripture from the Bible. We will see how that goes! We have invited him to be baptized the 28th of January.

We have lots and lots and lots of other investigators...but these are those who are progressing a little more than the rest. I hope that, although we may not be able to baptize every week this next change like we had hoped, that we can have the area ready so that when I leave the area...they will be ready to baptize. Its always hard to find people who are ready to learn and change, but with lots of prayer and lots of work and lots of sweat and tears, the Lord has been answering our prayers. I know the Lord has people ready for us to find. We just have to ready ourselves to find them. Anyways, I think my time is already up, so, just know that I love each and every one of you and I wish you all a very merry Christmas!

Hermana Stoor