January 27 - Napa Valley!

Family and friends,

Hello there! Guess what? I'm in Napa Valley now! 

Here's the scoop: I live in Calistoga, the less-ritzy town in the Napa
Valley area. But we cover several cities: Yountville and St. Helena (the
tourist attractions for wine bibbers), Berryessa and Deer Park (out in the
country and forest...basically imagine what the woods look like in
Twilight), and Angwin (the Seventh Day Adventist headquarters
- similar to Salt Lake City for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints).

It's TINY here. We can walk around Calistoga in probably an hour, give or
take a few minutes. And the other towns are all at least a 30 minute drive
in any direction. Yountville is a 45 minute drive, as is Berryessa
(Yountville is 45 minutes south of Calistoga, and Berryessa is 45 minutes
east).

The people who live in the Napa Valley area are 70% vineyard and winery
owners or workers. The area is covered by two sets of sisters:
English (me and Sis. Harston) and Spanish (Hermanas Kaiser y Chavez).
The Spanish sisters have so much success here because the residents they
work with are usually humble winery workers. Random side note:
I'm already getting really good at a few phrases in Spanish because of the
Spanish sisters haha.

On the other hand, the people we work with are the wealthy vineyard and
winery owners...yup. It's very hard to find people to teach. And contacting
every day is filled with very wealthy tourists here to tour the vineyards
and go wine tasting. Currently we have 1 investigator named Ray, who we are
most likely going to drop because he isn't progressing...sad day. But, I do
know that President Alba would not keep English-speaking sisters here if
there was not work to do! So this past week together Sis. Harston and I have
been doing some massive, extensive finding.

We basically spend the entire day in one of the towns and go through
less-active members, potential investigators, and former investigators. We
have potentially picked up a few new investigators, though. One's name is
Valerie - we helped her find her phone in a field, and she said "you've made
your religion very attractive to me, let's talk next week." Another is Saul
- we met him on the street today, actually, and he wants to learn more. We
had a miracle happen, too, with a boy named Wilman (who we are actually
going to pass off to the Spanish sisters soon, but that's alright)! It was
8:55 and we had
19 contacts (we are supposed to contact at least 20 new people every day).
We were driving home from another town and NO ONE was out in Calistoga. Then
we saw one lone man walking down a street, so we made some hefty maneuvers
and hurried to park our car. By the time we got out of the car he was
walking right past us and looking at us all weird. We started talking with
him, and I felt prompted to invite him to be baptized right there on the
street, so I invited him. And he said YES! He texted us later that night and
asked where we meet for church - he had a family emergency come up this Past
Sunday so he couldn't make it, but he wants to come next week to church!
Wow. So there you are - Wilman. Again and again, proof that God is preparing
His children to hear the Gospel. All we have to do is open our mouths.

I wish we didn't have to drive so much, but it is beautiful country we're
driving through - vineyard after vineyard with beautiful mountains
surrounding...it sure is gorgeous here! And technically it's "ugly" here,
according to people who live in this area, because of the drought we're in
and because the vines are dead, since it's wintertime. But it's still
gorgeous here, regardless.

As for my companion, Sis. Harston, she's awesome! She is HILARIOUS. I
basically die laughing every day because of her. She has such a desire to
find the elect, and we are both working our hardest to find, teach, and
baptize those who are ready. I'm staying positive so far - the wealthy
tourists haven't broken me yet! Haha.

Every Sunday after our branch meets, we go to the Veteran's home in
Yountville and help with Sacrament Meeting there. It was so amazing! I loved
having church with these amazing veterans. No one younger than
85 was at church yesterday...it was funny because I was asked to bear my
testimony so I get up to the podium lo and behold: all but one of the
members were asleep in their wheelchairs....and one veteran's dentures fell
out of his mouth and into his lap. Haha it was hard not to laugh, but I
managed to not crack up! The Spirit is very strong, there, aside from them
sleeping through the talks. It was kind of cool to have 90-year-old men pass
the sacrament to us - to see that they were still fulfilling priesthood
duties.

We are dinner with a member there, Conrad, and he told us amazing stories
about World War 2 and how he met his wife, and also his conversion story.
I'll take a picture with some of the vets to send back home in a few weeks.

Well, so much more to tell, but I'm out of time, sadly. I love you all! Make
this week the best week :)

Love always,

Sister Nikole Decker

P.S. Today a member who works at a winery, Sis. Montague, took us on a tour
of a famous winery called Castello di Amorosa. It was HUGE. They filmed the
movie "Brave" there (Disney/Pixar films it in real-life then animates it),
and lots of singers and bands have big concerts in the castle. It was neat
:)

P.P.S. There are so many Seventh Day Adventists here! It's crazy.