Sunshine From Brazil

Alooo!!
Heya Família! How y'all doin’ there?? Was it good to see Elder Cetraro?! Ha, next Skype call will be in my last transfer! WOW!! It really is going by quick, I am looking back on 2013 and it is weird to think that I was in all my areas this year. Maybe I will have one (really unlikely 2) areas in this new year. It is fun to look back, I think that is why I am so diligent at writing in my journal because it really makes you marvel and wonder about your own life. A year ago I was with my 2nd companion, Elder Hodson! WOW! I was still learning the ropes in how to be a missionary. And now I am the most experienced missionary in the Zone... weird?! But it is good. 

Today, I did mark with a young man in the ward that plays piano incredibly to try to see if I can learn how to make my own arrangements. I think next week I will try to do a follow up on the goals I made for 2013. Really, I saw how much God wanted to help us with our goals this last year. I made a BUNCH of goals if you remember right, well I wasn’t even following up on a lot of them but the cool thing is that the majority I was able to do or improve on! I will have to try to do the same for this year. I want to make goals for the rest of my mission, the transition from mission to real life, and what I want to happen by the end of the year.

Well, you wanna hear about Christmas!! My Christmas you can say was a pretty memorable Christmas. We took Mom’s challenge and we did Caroling until Christmas this last week. We have been searching and searching for couples to teach and last week we didn’t really find any. But it was great because I made my Christmas wish to Papai nos Céus and Christmas Eve we found 2 amazing couples, one of them was from Juazeiro and I fell instantly in love. As for Christmas day, it was sweeeet because we had our District meeting that day so I got to start Christmas off with our beloved missionaries from our Zone. We made eggs and pancakes and we had a White Elephant game at the end of the day which was a hoot! We came home and we realized we should make plans to help the Zone, So we spent the afternoon making plans to help everyone, and WOW it helped a lot and will help us to continue helping them for a while. Then at night a member called us over for a surprise and he is a landlord and he took us to go caroling to 5 couples that live in his apartments! 5 couples! Merry Christmas!! So that was great, it surely was a Merry Christmas.

So yeeaah, it was great to see you all. I thought the best was to see the little Ryker! Ha I haven’t really thought much about the photos I have already seen, but to actually see the bubblin’ baby was awesome! Luckily though I didn’t get as trunky as I thought I would get for Christmas, I am still here and I am still working hard. I am happy and excited. I couldn’t of asked for a better 2013 and a mission. And hey Mom!

.... I’ll be home for Chrrriiiiisstttmaasss!! You can count on me.

HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!