To my dear friends and wonderful family:

First, as always, I hope that you are having a fantastic day. And I hope that as you read this your day will get just a little bit better!

Now, some news:

Our new companion joined us here in Vallejo on Wednesday. Her name is Hermana F, and she is from southern Spain! So...her Spanish is perfect-she's teaching us a lot-and she is learning English. It has been awesome to hear about her experiences with missionary work--in her ward in Spain, they had 80+ convert baptisms last year. There are people getting baptized every weekend, and she said that most of them are friends and family members of the members. Wow! A little more about Hermana F: she has an older brother who served his mission in Scotland and a little brother who is 6 years old. She is studying piano and so is very musically inclined. She will turn 20 on Wednesday. (:

Now for the next chapter of Sergio, the man who calls us his angels. The last time we taught him, he told us that he has decided he wants to stick with his Catholic faith. He thanked us profusely for what we have done for him and said that we helped him so much. For now, we are not teaching him anymore. So heartbreaking, but he has definitely had a seed planted in his heart and hopefully he will nurture it and let it grow at some time in the future.

Finding and feeling the joy in the journey can be difficult at times when we do not see immediate results from our best efforts. I'm so blessed to have companions who are so supportive and filled with faith...a great miracle I see almost every day is how Heavenly Father blesses and inspires us to motivate and encourage one another. We lift each other up.

Okay, now I want to try to quickly give you all kind of an idea of what our work is like right now and how the days typically go. We study from 8 am to 12 pm. Then lunch and out the door at 1 pm. We are doing a lot of finding activities right now...trying to visit people who were taught in the past, talking to everyone, knocking on doors, looking for opportunities to serve. We are teaching several people but the last couple weeks has been a whole lot of cancelled appointments and not too much teaching. We are also trying to help several individuals and families who are currently less active in the church. This week we have a couple of family home evenings planned, one tonight with a family that we are teaching and another Thursday night with a less-active member--a sister who I actually taught before when I was in Napa. Almost every night, we have dinner with a family from the branch---they take really good care of us (: As you know, we have a car. I haven't used my bike at all yet here in Vallejo...current companion isn't too keen on riding a bicycle, so that's okay. Our area is pretty big, and actually it is comprised of a couple different sections, one in the north and another smaller one in the east. We have 1000 miles each month.

Let me know if you have any questions I can answer!!

I want to finish by just thanking you for your support. Thank you for your  letters and emails and cards and drawings. :) Thank you especially to all of you who pray continually on my behalf.

Have a wonderful week!

Much love,

Hermana Brighton