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!!!

Hey!! 

Wow!! I got a letter from the whole fam today! Sweeeet! Writing back is a little more difficult but that’s alright. I can type fast!! Much faster than write.

So I guess I’ll fill you in on my week. I actually am feeling a lot better. I hope whatever it was is gone completely. I really am lucky though that my sickness didn’t get me down. Umm... This week the work was actually a lot better. We got back into the groove talking with a lot of people, and teaching a lot. I am helping Elder Monical teach more, but I still feel like I have to prompt him to do it still. But he is getting better for sure.

The District of Sisters that I am helping is having a lot of success. It is good to see how the Lord is blessing them, and it is good to see how each Sister is growing, especially since I have known half of them for over 3 months now. Sister Bailey really liked the Sympathy card you sent by the way.

Probably the funniest story of the week would have to be when I found an old drunk man scooting around in the road. I decided to help him a bit because being in the middle of the road is a bit dangerous you know. So we held his hands and helped him walk to a corner for him to lie down. When we got there he started mumbling something that I didn’t understand. He let go of my hand and looked down to see that his shorts were leaking... Eita! I then understood him, he was saying "I want to pee" so he hurried and did his business in the middle of the road but the funny part was to see my companion there, still holding his hand, having no clue what was going on while this old man is taking a leak in the middle of the road. He couldn’t let go because then he would fall, so yeah. He was a trooper. It was hilarious though.

Besides that, Bishop’s Wife is about to pop, she will have her baby this next Friday. Bishop is happy. I’m happy. It’s going good. I have two big goals right now. One is to be more organized in everything, with planning and cleaning and yeah. The other is to work more with the members. Because I know there are plenty of willing members.... you just have to plan everything and call them first. So we will see. But I am good and it is good to hear from everyone in the family.

Love you guys and have a great week!

-Elder Zac Cetraro

How is it going?! So I think it is funny that your week was slow as well. This last week seemed a little dreary here. So I got sick about 4-5 days ago and it is just kinda funny how much of a grump I kinda become when I am sick. Haha, I am willing to do the work every day, it is just my patience dies and if there are any difficulties, it is just a little harder to endure them.  Good news is, I think I am healthy again now.

I don’t remember if I told you but last week I went through all my journaling of 2012 and yeah it was awesome. I thought I would make a special entry of the things I am grateful for and yeah I filled up 13 pages I think. Ha, I finished that this week. Now I think this week I will do goals....for my full year in the mission. Have any fun ideas for me?

So what exciting things are happening down here?  I think it is really cool, especially this week that we can have these people that were so close to being baptized, but it doesn’t go right, so we end up cutting them, and leave them super prepared for another future missionary. But the Lord is so nice to us and we find new golden contacts to replace their spot of baptism. It is cool though because our Zone is really doing well, like some of the best in recent history. The ward is amazed that we are holding baptisms every week and each week we have at least 20 visitors, and I hear that the other area’s are doing well also. So that is pretty exciting. Also, for me, I can hear the time ticking for when I get transferred. I can’t promise that I will. But I am pretty sure February 4th I’m heading up to Fortaleza! Ha, the actual mission! It is going to be like arriving in a new mission all over again because I hear it is a whole new world up there!

Alrighty, muito amor!

-Elder Cetraro

Hey Dad! Happy Holidays, sounds like it has been great for you guys! Vamos Ver?!  I never got to speak much Portuguese with ya, I wanted to n stuff. But it is all cool.

Thank you for the mission experience. I have been waiting a long time for that. What mission was it again? It is crazy how our faith gets us baptisms.

Anyway, in Mom’s email I talked about a dance party right? Well I thought it was funny that day, because I had a discussion with my comp about the Color Code. My Comp is a pure RED. It is ridiculous, I don’t think I have ever met a red like him. He is suuuper ambitious, ha! And I talked about how in our house we have one of each color. But I still feel like my yellow doesn’t really show a lot, but it was funny because that night my yellow burst and I was the most social person there!

How is your book coming along? I also thought it was cool I gave a message last night on goals. I wanted to do something different and I thought it was cool what all came together. I like Ether 12:4. I kinda used that as a theme - about how can we put an anchor on our goals (hope for a better world). We read about the Anti Nephi Lehi's who were super firm in their goal, even unto death. I asked what did they do to be so firm? And we looked back in Alma 24:7-10 and how they expressed a lot of thanks about what happened in the past (past year) and how they celebrated their goals. It was cool in the discussion with everyone, about how all the parts of the goal cycle came out. I then said how the whole BofM is set up like this. We have Nephi saying I will show the tender mercies in the first chapter and in the last chapter of the BofM we have Moroni saying look back at the tender mercies v.3 and ponder them in your heart. Then afterwards he goes into seek for the gifts of the spirit, which is basically telling us to make goals. So yeah, was interesting, but now I need to get going on my year goals.

Love ya, Dad!