January 2, 2013

I don't really like to tell people about my birthday (just past - Dec 29th) and things like that here. I don't really want anyone to do anything for me while I'm here in the mission field - it's not that big of a deal. I actually didn't have any presents to open on my birthday because after you told me that I had some interesting stuff I just got curious and opened it all after I got home on Christmas.

That's interesting that you say I sound different, but understandable. I look a little different since I have been slowly baking here in the desert for a whole year (I just passed one year in Chile).

Sounds like Christmas went pretty much the same as usual on your end, except for the fact that I wasn't there, unless that has become normal :P . I am glad that you got everything figured out for the Elders there for their phone call so that they call home, after they had a little bit of a hard time connecting at Bates.

I am glad that Austin (Jordan's nephew) will be a little bit of a more formidable opponent this coming Christmas in the  Nerf battle.  You should know that despite being in Chile, I have had a couple NERF battles here also. Just in my shirt and tie.

Pretty much all the churches here start at 10 in the morning except for reasons such as having two wards close together, without room to put another church. We did have multiple wards in Antofagasta and also in Alto Hospicio.

The reason that we don't have P-Day in this sector is that they use it to get together once a week for the meetings that we typically have in the mornings. Then they usually make us do something called a zone attack, where the whole zone does contacts or works in one sector for a couple hours. I really don't mind that, but what kind of sucks is that we have to be outside of our sector for the whole time. We can't clean the pension, really relax, or do some kind of activity in our own sector like go take a picture from the hills around about.

I have realized that I really like Andrea Bocceli here (Italian Tenor who sings classical and classical crossover music). (random thought)

I know exactly how many baptisms since I've been out, but you just need to know that I feel that I am being successful here. Maybe after the mission I will let you know.

Love Jord