Happy New Year!

Hey, first things first, I am so grateful I could talk to all of you! That picture is great I didn’t know you hooked it up to the TV that was pretty electronic savvy. That was so great to see all of you I felt like I was there having some sweet Christmas memories, ha gotta be honest had to make the ending a little short so I wouldn’t get all emotional, thought I ended it on a good note:) It was so nice to see you all though, makes you appreciate family. I was so happy the rest of the day, ha one thing that is different in Chile is they love to talk and it is kind of just the culture to talk over each other, so when you guys listened I was like dang this is super cool! ha-ha so nice to see you all made my day.

This week was a good week, We walked soooo much and couldn’t really find anyone and couldn’t really teach much due to the holiday times but it was a good week, Ha for some funny stories we went to this one house out in the campo to teach this one menos activo family, they had some visitors come over and we were already sitting down as they walked in, they have this culture thing where you kiss the person on the side of the cheek but we can’t do it obviously, the mom walked in and I got my arm out in front of me and I was good, but the daughter came in and as I put out my hand she shook it then kept going in. I was freaking out in my mind but if you show them a freak out it will be very insulting because that is what they do here. So yep, totally did the great side kiss thing and then immediately the menos activo lady was just like no no no you can’t do that he is an elder and then me and Elder Gardner had to explain ourselves, she was SOOOO EMBARRASSED we felt really bad, she was not getting over it she couldn’t look at us she was so embarrassed, I was also super RED cause its weird for that to happen. Not going to lie, but they didn’t know and you just have to be nice about it. Ha to make that visit even more interesting she made us stay to try her sopapilla pasadas which is a dessert and she gave us some juice. We had to pour the juice ourselves and it looked kind of dirty we thought it was just they didn’t clean it very well so we were like whatever gotta drink it no matter what. But then Elder Gardner tapped me and said “look”.  I looked and in his water it was like a little worm stick thing very tiny but it started to swim like a little tadpole more worm like though but that swimming motion, I freaked out cause I already drank some of my juice, ha-ha then the lady saw and she was just like oh oops here I’ll get you another glass, we remembered that they use wells out in the campo so sometimes the water gets kind of dirty and stuff, ha-ha so gross but at least we saw it.

It was a great learning week, I think as I think about what is so rewarding so far is just being able to work all day every day and just feel worked dead mentally, spiritually, and physically and just feel the growth and change. I think one of the things I realized most as we come to the New Years is the miracle of growth and change. What is so cool on the mission is every day, hour, and sometimes minute you are constantly reflecting on how you are doing and what you could do to learn more or grow more. Goals are so important in the mission field and also life. I think what is so cool is the power of using the gospel of Jesus Christ with goal setting. For example, Learning Spanish, Everyday you get a TINY TINY bit better and my instant want is to just be fluent and be happy, but that is not how Heavenly Father works, or else coming to earth to be tested and grow would be pointless, he wants us to make daily goals and start off somewhere small, like studying and mastering a grammar principle and paying real good attention to what people are saying and applying it and writing down words you don’t get. Then you can make some month goals of being able to teach certain lessons with being flexible to answer questions they may ask, what I have seen is Satan wants us to be frustrated that we can’t have what we want immediately, his plan was for us to have happiness without working for it, but you can’t have happiness without working for it. What I have really fought over and thought about almost way too much is how I cannot get frustrated over it. That also is impossible ha, but it’s how you take the frustration and how you channel it to good things. IT is so nice that we have the opportunity to keep changing and working for better things. I love how I can pray to my heavenly father multiple times in the day to ask for his help and repent of things I didn’t do too well. Every night I ask for his help to improve in areas with these small and large goals. In life we have small goals like doing good in a lesson, or large goals like becoming fluent in Spanish, or even larger like becoming like Christ and living an eternal life with our family, and the way we can accomplish this is living the gospel of Jesus Christ, progressing and being patient and having long-suffering during times where the far goal is way out of reach and applying everything else of the gospel to help you accomplish the things you want to in life. I am so excited to start understanding this more on my mission and to keep progressing, but I know with the Lord it is possible, But just a little thought I had this week, Just loving it here, even when it gets hard, just how it is and you gotta love it.

Send me some more photos I loved getting all the photos of the Family! and Also the one you sent me of the painted up at the football game! Send me some with some of my friends at college and some of the spirit days or something at high school as well or just random ones IDK I loved them all, ha-ha Loved the one with me and all of you guys and the TV sweet picture. Glad I could be there ha-ha love you ALL!!! Here are some pics as well of my house and one of the kids that was in the family we ate with Christmas Eve!