ASL and Going to Mass

SOOOOoooo Basically this week was awesome. We went to check on someone a member told us about, and he was deaf. So I signed to him and set up another time to come see him and teach him! His name is Howard. He is older and a heavy smoker. It was a miracle I could sign to him. S. Bond can't sign and so I've been relearning and teaching her at the same time. And in return she's teaching me french! No french people we're contacting yet, but I'm sure we'll find someone:)

We are teaching Tom too. He was baptized a while ago, but now smokes and drinks heavily. His wife is very active in the church and we just started teaching him yesterday! He has such a deep desire to know the truth. He has tons of deep questions and really a huge yearning to know everything right now. haha. So we had to explain the bulls-eye of learning. The middle is the "have to know now", the second ring out is the "should know", the third ring is the "nice to know", and the fourth ring or outer ring is the "don't need to know and talked about only in High Priest group" (hahaha). As missionaries we only teach the center of the bulls-eye, the 2nd ring is taught at church, and the 3rd is learned from scripture study, prayer, and talking to other members via Visiting teaching and Home teaching. He really understood it and now he'll ask a question and we point to the bulls-eye ring that coordinates to that question. He really is super cool.

So still no snow on the ground, but it's about 12 degrees outside (yesterday) and 20 degrees out today. It's just super cold, and according to the local people, dry.

One cool thing is that no one here refers to Massachusetts as Massachusetts. It's always Mass. So for the longest time I thought that everyone was Catholic and going to Mass at the most randomest times and staying for days! haahahahahahaaa, it was funny.

Merry Christmas!!!

(I (mom) added the rest, written from Erin's companion, Sister Bond:
  

So we had a couple of miracles this week that completely blew my mind.  First we go to contact a referral and he turns out to be a deaf man.  Right when I started to think it was a lost cause, S.Merrell starts signing like a champ and gets us a return appointment.  Second, we go back to teach (with a member who can also sign like my awesome companion S.Merrell) and I could understand the bulk of what he was saying (the Spirit is so awesome)!  It was so cool!  So the result is that we are teaching a deaf man...which means that S.Merrell is teaching me ASL.  I can now say, "Would you like to be baptized?" and "You are a silly goose."  I don't think the latter one will help me at all during teaching...but it did make me a new friend!  There are a few deaf people in our branch and S.Merrell was translating for them.  I caught her attention and called her a silly goose.  She laughed but the best part was that S.Ritter saw me and started laughing in sign language!  She told me that she thought I was funny and that I need to learn more sign.  So basically, I made a new friend.