Hermana Sadie Stokes California Oakland/San Francisco: Feliz Navidad(:

Dearest Friends and Family,

Feliz navidad!!! yay!!! Christmas is this week! I am so happy.

First off... I need to tell you... so there was a mix up and last Tuesday, transfer day, we figured out we were actually moving to Sister Corbitts apt. So I now live in south San Mateo. I don't have the address, so please just send everything to the mission home from now on until I figure out our address. I know I wasn't able to let you know.. so I know things might have been sent to my old apartment. WEll other missionaries live there so hopefully I will be able to get those things. But if you sent something to my bayshore apartment, please let me know so that I can keep track of everything! but yes! please send everything else to the mission home.(:

So yeah, Tuesday was pretty crazy. and it was pouring rain. yeah fun day of packing and moving. But i love my new apartment.(: It's big! haha its weird living in a big apartment. But yeah. This week was great!! It's fun covering two areas! Since we are combining the areas for good, we have a lot of work to do. and our area is now HUGE. we cover all of San mateo, foster city, and burlingame. yep thats three cities. its crazy! but its good. We have had a great week. i like this area.(:

Being Sister Training Leader will be cool too. I know I am going to learn so much, I already have! I love it! tonight we are going to start our first exchange. I'm excited. It's fun being STL because we all of the sudden have fun new responsibilities! Like Thursday we got a call from president telling us to come to Oakland. We had to go and each of us had to drive these two sisters home. Because sister Tadevosyan in our zone is from armenia and is training. and she can't drive. but her trainy sister vejnar is from colorado and did not want to drive through san francisco first time driving in cali.. ha she wanted to watch someone first (makes perfect sense. driving here is scary.) so I got to drive with sister Vejnar and show her the ropes of driving in San Francisco. Plus i got to spend a couple of hours with a new missionary in california traffic! It was so great!! I love her. New missionaries are the greatest. And I really was just glad to help. I think that is what I am goign to love about this calling most. I love helping people especially president meredith and these sisters.. I think thats the coolest part of being STL. We not only get to help all these members and non members, but we get to help the sisters in our zone and be there for them. I don't know all these sisters yet, but I already love them sooo much. Plus I have the best zone. Because our stake, the San Francisco stake, has like 4 english wards, 4 tongan wards, and 2 spanish wards. so two spanish districts, one tongan district, and one english district. So it will be fun go on exchanges with all these people.(: So yeah, life is good.(:

We went to a new leader training on Friday, and I got to see sister Cefalo!! Ah I loved it! and the training was really good. It's good that we have these things to make us better leaders.(:

We had a Christmas party on friday for the ward!! Oh my goodness it was so fun. I will attach pictures. the kids were adorable. They did the nativity. And they had Santa come which was the best. They bought gifts for all the kids since a lot of these kids don't have much. It was soo cool to see the kids were so happy!!!

I think that's about it... I love my new companion!!! she is from Gilbert, Arizona. She is so awesome. This is her last transfer so it's great being with someone with a lot of experience.(: I love teaching with her!

I'm sorry this email is so lame, I really just don't know what to say. But Maria is still doing great. She is out of town for two weeks in Idaho visiting her family. So we are praying that she will continue reading the book of mormon and be ready to continue when she comes back.

I hope you all have a merry Christmas. Christmas really is amazing. I love it so much. I know this church is true. God really did send his only begotten son for US. Because he loves us. Jesus Christ is our savior. What can you give him for his birthday? I hope we can all share this wonderful restored gospel as a gift to our savior. I also hope we can serve others to show him our love. mosiah 2:17.

I love you all so much! have an amazing week! thank you for all your support and love during these holidays! It is so amazing!!! I am so blessed to have you all.

Hermana Stokes