Navidad, nueva area

Hey everyone,

I hope you all had an awesome Christmas!! This is one of the times of year that missionaries love the most! I had a great time calling my family and being able to talk to them for a while, it is crazy to see how everyone’s lives have changed since the last time I called 6 months ago. We also got to go and have a few fun Christmas parties with the bishop and some other members in the ward, it was great.

Things are pretty awesome here in my new area. There is a bit of Spanish here, so it is good that we can have some good lessons with Spanish people. Haha, so far people here are really nice. When we do have a lesson they love to chat with you and sometimes they get going on a role and talk to you for like 20 min without you getting a word in sideways.  Haha but I guess that is better than awkward silence.

Sorry we haven’t had any stories that are too crazy yet here, I hope y’all have a great new year.  Remember to set some good New Year’s resolutions! 

Feliz Navidad

Hey everyone,

So we had transfers this week and I will be leaving Houma to go to a area called Lafayette, which means I will have served in every area my second companion served in plus 2, haha I’ve heard it is a fun area so I’m super excited to go there even though I’m sad to leave Elder Clifford and Houma.

The cool experience from this week was when we went to the ward Christmas party. In this area there are a lot of less active people that all the missionaries and members have been working on for a long time to come to church.   At the Christmas party it came to fruition. Almost all the less actives we have all been working on came to the party, and were able to meet and mingle with the members again.  It was also great cuz only one of the Spanish less active families we work with wasn’t there.  Then even better, a lot of the people that came to the ward party, also came to church for the first time in ages this last Sunday; so that was a great time!

Another blessing from this week is that we got to go to the temple! I really love the temple and I was a little bit spoiled by it back home. In high school we were able to do temple Tuesday’s and many times a month we were able to go and attend the temple.  Since coming to Louisiana, seeing as there is only one temple in the state, I’ve only been able to go twice.   I feel like because of that, my appreciation of the temple, and the special spirit it brings, has grown. I love the temple and I love the fact that through the priesthood and temple ordinances we can be sealed to our family live together for all eternity.

Love all of you, I hope you have an awesome Christmas! 

President Varner (Santa) & Sister Varner

Nola Zone

Houma District with Santa

SNOW!

Hey everyone how’s life?

Things are going good down here and we had a pretty eventful week in some ways that usually don’t happen. The first of these is the snow we got on Friday of this week. Yep the impossible happened, Louisana had more snow one day than some parts of Utah! It won’t ever happen again probably, it was the first time Houma had received snow in about 10 years! It was a blast, we made snowmen and had a few snowball fights with a member family and heard a few comments about how hell had finally frozen over, it was great! 

Also this week we had a fun call on Wednesday from Elder Bagley in La Place, he called us telling us we needed to go and see one of his investigators that had just moved to Houma so he could hear the final lesson he needed before getting baptized on Friday! So we call the guy (his name is T) and set something up for that night.... and then he didn’t show up.  Apparently he fell asleep after we set up the appointment and completely missed it.  The next day we call him and ended up having to do the lesson over the phone with him because he lived about 30 miles away.... a little too far to bike when it is raining cats and dogs, but it was a good lesson and apparently the baptism (he got baptized in La Place) went smoothly so that is great.

 Then the last crazy thing that happened this week is that the big Spanish family we met last week finally were not sick anymore.  We went over and started to teach them a lesson; come to find out the mom is a less active Mormon and their grandma that is in Puerto Rico is a super active Mormon.  The mom said she had been inactive for so long she had forgotten most of the church doctrine, but that she loved how the church worked still.  Her daughters that aren’t Mormon were telling us how out of all the religions they studied about, while in a religion course in college, the LDS church was the one they were the most impressed with.  In the end most of them were very willing for us to come back and refresh the mom’s memory of the church and to take the missionary lessons. It was great!

Love y’all I hope you have an awesome week!