Dearest Family and Friends,

I hope that you all are having a FANTASTIC week. 

This should be a really good week! We have found an area in our area with a bunch of apartments where it seems like a lot of Hispanics live, and we're going to get to work there. Hermana Ellsworth made the point this week that in every place that we have knocked on all the doors, we have found at least one person who was interested...someone who seemed prepared. It's true and it was neat to look back and think of all the different places we've been and the people that we found. Hopefully this week that will continue, but we will get to keep teaching the people we'll find because they'll speak Spanish! (: Really, though, no matter whether we get to be the missionaries that teach them or not, it is such an amazing experience to talk to someone who's searching for more in their life and has their heart and mind open to learn about the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm so grateful for every encounter like that that I have had on my mission. There have been so many!

Also, another great thing that this week has going for it: daylight savings time! The time change means that it's actually still light after dinner!!! I'm so so so glad because people are often less receptive to us after dark. Go figure! Makes it harder to go knock on doors. Anyway, I think I exclaimed at least 4 or 5 times last night about how happy I was that it was still light. I've never been so glad for the time change. (:

It's funny, because we spend hours knocking on doors and trying to track down people who've said they might be interested and sometimes it seems a whole day or a whole week of that doesn't amount to much as far as finding anyone who really wants to talk to us. Then somebody who IS interested comes along and we hardly have to do anything! That happened to us this week. We were just out trying to see if some people were home that the other missionaries had sent us to see when we got a call about a man named Manuel who talked with his friend who is a member of the church and said he would like to meet with the missionaries. Well, we gave him a call and he didn't answer. But a few minutes later, he called us right back and said we could come over to his house later in the day. So we went over there with one of the sisters from the Spanish branch and we met him and he told us about the experiences that he's had recently that have made him want to live life better and be closer to God. He's going through a lot medically so his schedule is hectic with doctor appointments, but he accepted our invitations to read about the Plan of Salvation and to start reading the Book of Mormon. He is a man who is searching...what a joy to know that we can truly help him find answers that will bring him and his family peace and joy now and for eternity! 

In every day there are miracles. This is God's work.

I don't remember if I every really described the apartment and area where we're living for you. So I thought that might be kind of fun. Our apartment is super nice (I believe I had at least mentioned that much). We live very close to the Sonoma State University so there are lots of college students in the area, but our complex is more like condominiums so I think it's more families and older people. From what (or who) I've seen. We have two stories. The kitchen, our bedroom, a living room where we study, a bathroom, and a closet with our washer and dryer are downstairs. Then upstairs is the loft with another bathroom and little tiny bedroom. I use the bathroom upstairs for showering in the morning. Sometimes we go up to the loft for our weekly planning sessions. This week though we actually did it in our bedroom because we were cold and the downstairs bathroom and bedroom are pretty much the only rooms that get warm. We also have a dishwasher that we have used only once because we just don't use that many dishes. The owner told us she got if fixed and wanted to make sure it was working...so we had to use it that once to check for her. (: Hand-washing dishes is just easier when there aren't very many. Right now it's really pretty outside our apartment on the streets where we walk in the mornings for our exercise. Things are in bloom, and there are a whole bunch of really pretty pink trees. They smell really good too. I love that it is springtime and getting warmer. We did have a couple rainy days this week, but I think we needed it so that was nice. 

Thanks for reading my longer email this week. I'm trying to do better at saying and sharing more (: I love you all. Thank you for your support and especially for your prayers for me!

Have a great week.

Love,

Hermana Brighton