A NEW YEAR!

This is his new look for the new year, same ole Ross!
These are the Watts Towers, missionaries like to take pictures of them.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Wow that is pretty crazy! This past year went by SUPER fast! It was a really good year. Lots of hard work and sweat, and some awesome people that entered the waters of baptism. These next two months will be full of miracles! We are working hard and finding some really great people. Yesterday was a real letdown though. Nobody showed up to church! We were expecting 4 people. Next week will be better. A couple of investigators have been going downhill a little due to all the fiestas and busy things going on. But we are meeting with them tonight, and we hope to set a baptismal date! We talked with one last week and asked her to pray about the 22nd for baptism and she responded "do I have to wait that long?". Haha! We told her to pray about the 15th instead. We have another lady with a baptismal date for the 22nd. We taught her yesterday and have another lesson today! We asked her to pray about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon last night, and we are expecting a positive result today.
We had a really nice New Years devotional with President Baker! He is awesome! We went over the new standards of excellence for the year. They are super good! But I won't go into much detail because that is the kind of thing that makes only missionaries excited, and isn't too interesting for normal people (referring to anybody that hasn't been set apart by somebody holding the proper authority to be a full-time missionary of God).
Guess what?! It is smoking hot out here! It feels like the middle of summer! I'm sweating as I type! This time last year was really rainy. But this year it has been pure sun for weeks! I just wanted to make you folks in Vernal feel a little jealous.
Today we had a district activity for p-day. We went to downtown LA and checked out "Little Tokyo". I felt like I stepped outside the USA for a little while. The only thing that made me feel like I was in LA was the reassuring sound of people speaking Spanish in a couple of the shops. But even then, that is still a little foreign. But it made me feel a little more comfortable.
On New Years Eve all the missionaries got with their zones and had an activity in a church. We went and played volleyball in the LA Stake Center. It was really fun! Then we went to bed at 10:30 and I totally forgot that it was New Years Eve until I woke up to the screaming and booming of fireworks at midnight haha! It is funny how we tend to forget about holidays as missionaries. We had a really nice church meeting. The Bishopric spoke and gave some really nice words about a new year. We have an awesome bishopric.
Welp, have an awesome week! I'm really grateful for my mission. It continues to change me a lot. I just had the chance to finish the Book of Mormon this past week, and my testimony still stands firm that the Book of Mormon is definitely the word of God. I testify that it can bring us closer to God each time we read it, if we read with an open heart and real intent. I love you all!
Elder Watkins