'Its a beautiful day in the neighborhood.' Sister Sainsbury and I have been singing that one line back and forth to each other for the past week as we walked in the rain and I think it rubbed off on the overall week and it was the reason we found my new favorite family to teach! The week started off a little weird and it ended a little weird too - tomorrow is transfers, again!! The transfers already seem like they are going shorter and shorter so it's crazy to think about having everything switched around again but exciting. I am staying in Laredo and my current companion, Sister Sainsbury is off to Harlingen. My new companion will be Sister Barton - I am pretty sure I wrote about her in the CCM, but I LOVE(d) HER and I am sure it will stay that way! This week included almost no study time but lots of service and smiling. Jan. 6th - Soup Kitchen in Laredo, as a zone we got to go and completely reorganize and package bags, boxes and more bags of food for delivery to veterans, and we worked there for three hours and by the time we got done you couldn't even recognize the room. On thursday (Jan. 8th) we went back again and were planning on delivering the packages to people's cars but not many came because it was so cold outside. I folded dirty laundry for 3 hours out in the cold and my hands were prunes when we left, a good experience though - I will remember the numbness forever! Jan. 7th - Sister's Conference, another 6 hours in the car, we traveled to McAllen and met up with all 50 other sisters in the mission. Jan. 8th - We found the Perez Family! While walking and singing "its beautiful day in the neighborhood" a man came up and asked why we were out in the rain singing and he referred us to his neighbor. Well turns out his neighbor is awesome - its a mom and her three kids, her son DJ is one of the smartest boys I have ever met and he is 12 (just like you Sloan)! Anyway the rest of the week was focused mostly on them, we had a lesson everyday and the family came to church yesterday! I am so excited about them! The area of North Laredo, well its just like the song "its a beautiful...neighborhood" and so the success level of being able to find and teach people in warm homes has not been very high but my attitude and love for the "work" has grown a ton! Happiness is a choice and success comes when we work hard and smart. Happiness is as easy as repentance; switch your mind and the next thing you know you feel a bijillion times better...not saying that it's easy but in hindsight it is much easier than just being miserable, siempre. Sending you all my happiness, dont worry - I can make more! LOVE YOU LOTS H. mckenna Crawford