Happy Valentine's!

Hi Mamita y Familia,

Well, this has probably been the longest and most ridiculous week of my mission, but we made it through. With Zone Training and exchanges and a baptism and having no car and our dishwasher flooding and our washing machine ruining my clothes and getting sick...I'm surprised we survived, but we live and we learn :) it was a beautiful baptism though. I love baptisms. I used to get so stressed about making sure everything was perfect, but now we just do what we can and if it's not perfect, well, they're still getting baptized and that's all that matters. But it was lovely and everything worked out great. Hermana Painter and I sang "Asombro Me Da" (I Stand All Amazed), mi himno favorito, and it really brought the Spirit. It was great. Elder Cordery and Elder Olvera also taught at the baptism they are very wonderful missionaries who bring the Spirit every time they teach and testify.

No worries about the being sick thing (I know you're wondering). I'm not sure what happened, but I started feeling sick on Saturday and then spent most the night up in pain and eventually throwing up. After that I felt all right and was able to sleep, and the next day at church the Elders gave me a blessing. I still wasn't feeling too hot, but in the blessing I was promised a good night sleep, which I received, so even though I'm still not 100% today, I'm feeling much more rested. I think I had a little bit of a fever too, but I didn't keep up with it well enough to know exactly. It didn't keep us from doing the work of the Lord though, so all is well. Hermana Painter has been feeling all right, but she still has her ups and downs with her esophagus, but she's doing really well for the most part.

I feel like I'm having a hard time getting everything done that I need to. I feel like my mind is winding down and getting all sorts of disctracted, but this is the time that I need to be more focused than ever because I have so many responsibilities. I think the Lord knows that if He doesn't keep me busy, I'll get trunky or something ;) I am definitely feeling the support of my Savior at this time in my mission though. I know He's aware of me and the work that we are doing.

We had lots of fun miracles this week, with finding two less-actives by accident! One was a referral from the English missionaries (they had no idea she was a member), but they set up an appointment with her and told us to head on over. We tried teaching her but soon realized that she had already been baptized, about 20 years ago in Guatemala, but hasn't come to church over here due to health. P.S. She feels like she knew an Elder Escalante in Guatemala, so can you ask Michael if he remembers a "Lina Chavez"? Also, what trip to India? I was left out on that part of the family update. And I'm absolutely jealous.

Anyway, we also had a few minutes before we needed to exchange back with Hermana Painter and Sister Major, so Sister Wickham and I decided to know a door that had a 3-prong satellite (Spanish channel - we look for the clues to find the Latinos, ha-ha) but then her neighbor opened the garage door. We went to talk to her and she wasn't interested but we asked her if she had Spanish-speaking neighbors and she directed us to another house up the street. We knocked it and found out it was a member of the English ward but invited us in to talk to her mom. Turns out she is the Mysterious Rosa that moved and we had no trace of, but we found her just a few streets over by accident! It was a cool miracle.

Wow, almost out of time. So our car also went to Vista for a few days this week to get fixed, so we were left without a car to cover half of the city, but the members are awesome and we got rides, as well as did lots of walking. It was fun. Oh yeah, and we had a fun activity with the branch for Valentines’ day and Iris and her family came (new investigator). We were also able to give her a tour of the chapel, but she seemed to feel a little guilty there and they opted not to come to church the next day. Bummer. We also found a new investigator named Claudia this week and she is stellar! Hopefully I'll have more time to tell you more next week.

Well, sounds like the family is doing great! I got a great email from Brudder this week and tell him I'll write him next week. This seriously has been the longest week ever, and I didn't even get to tell you about all of it. Well, I love you so very much and I think it's so cool that you are studying the gospel so much more these days. I love it so much and I love how much sense it makes and how much happiness it brings us. 

Love you soooooo much!

Hermana Alyssa Nicole Escalante