Hello everyone!

I am so happy to be here with you today. I would like to thank my mission president for this opportunity to speak.

Yeah, so... how is everyone? I got letters from a whole slew of people today. Thank you all for writing! It makes my day so much brighter (even though it is raining right now.)

Aubri, I am so happy for you! Have a great week! I wish I could be there, but I'll see you when I get home.

Today I am feeling very happy. This is the last P-day of the transfer, and one of the Sisters is going home on Monday. We are going to miss her, but today we are enjoying ourselves. We went in the morning to a sort of carnival, but it was already closed. But then the Sisters told us that there is a maze close by that is made with bushes or hedges, like in Harry Potter, except that it is only about 4 feet high. So we did that and then went to a park and took pictures and then came back to the church to eat, play ping pong, and write our families! Also today one of the Elders in my district, Elder Jarvis got a video of his little brother receiving his mission call. He is going to Chile. It was a lot of fun to see another future missionary receive his call!

This last week we had some great contacts. We were able to talk to some people who are very promising that we are going to visit again this week. Margarita and Camila both have baptismal dates for the 24th of February right now. They both need your prayers! Camila told us yesterday that she has been praying every night and is waiting for an answer that the Church is true and that she should get baptized. She is worried that it will never come. She has the doubt that maybe the Church isn't for her, so Heavenly Father isn't going to answer he prayer. We have faith that she will in fact receive it. Margarita just needs to go to church. She was sick this weekend and couldn't go, but she told us she knows she needs to and will go this week.

Some experiences from this week:

After leaving a members house (the family of Ludmila, who got baptized in December) we were riding our bikes down the street when her little 3 or 4 year old brother runs out screaming something. He was screaming "¡Un Beso! ¡Un Beso!" "A kiss! A kiss!" In argentina they say hello and goodbye with kisses, and we only accept them from little kids. I left with "saying goodbye" and he wanted to tell me goodbye!

On Tuesday I did an exchange with the elders in Dolores, and while we were out clapping houses, we saw some Jehovah's Witnesses. This is common, but they usually avoid us and go down a different street. But this time, we were in front of a house waiting for a guy to come out, and they went to the house right next door and clapped it. It was interesting to be doing contacts side by side with them. They may have some strange ideas, but at least they are out trying to share an important message!

After lunch on Wednesday we were sharing a scripture with the family, and they had their grandkids there. My companion asked Sofia, who is 10 years old and a member to read 1 Nephi 1:1, but to replace "Nephi" with "Sofia". Now to understand what happened next we have to explain a little Spanish. When is says "born of goodly parents" in Spanish that is "nací de buenos padres". So "goodly" is "buenos" in this case. But when she read it, she changed it more than expected and said "Yo, Sofia, nací en buenos aires, y recibí por tanto..." This may not be funny or make sense in English, but it was pretty funny when it happened!

On Wednesday night, we had a Family Home Evening for the branch in the church. My companion organized it all, and was a great success! We watched the Testaments, did the "Seminary Doughnuts" lesson but with Alfajors, played a game where you had to pick up a candy with your teeth from a plate, but it was buried in flour. Then we played hangman and had a piñata. The phrase in hangman was "Appearances can be deceiving" and they got to break the piñata when they guessed it. The piñata was filled with paper and flour (appearances can be deceiving) and we taught a lesson about how the devil tries to make sins appear good, and how we can avoid falling in his trap. Then we had chips and soda and candy to finish. It was really fun, and we had about 4 or 5 inactive members come who haven't been to church in more than 6 months! In two weeks we are having another one about the Plan of Salvation.

I love you all so much! Thanks for your prayers and love.

Chau.