Jan. 2, 2012 with Elder M in Melo

Hey all,

Happy New Years! Hope 2011 was awesome for everyone. It sure was for
me. Me, Elder Moffitt, and Elder Burnett are all realizing that 2011
was our full year as missionaries, and it's now over. To tell the
truth, I got pretty trunky on New Year's Eve. I only have 7 weeks
left. That's nothing. I just opened a letter from my trainer Elder
Erickson today and he's getting married on February 18. This always
happens to me. People just go and get married while I'm on my
mission...and on February 18. So yeah, that made me kinda trunky too.
I'm now at the point in the mission where he was when he left me in 33
to go to his final change. Hey, if his address happens to be on his
facebook, could you send it to me. I've wanted to write him for a
while, but have lost his address.

For New Years, we didn't do much. Well....we actually did tons...just
not celebrating. On Friday we had the baptism of Fernanda planned and
went by in the morning to make sure everything was good and that she
had the permission from her mom (Foster mother) and when we got there,
her brother who had already received the lessons, had already gone to
church, and already knew a lot about the church, told us that he was
ready to get baptized too with his sister. So we started preparing the
baptism of both of them and were super excited. When the time for the
baptismal interview came, only Lucas, the brother came. Fernanda
couldn't because her mom sent her to take another little brother to
soccer practice...yeah. Anyways, Lucas got baptized on Friday. We just
planned on waiting a week for Fernanda because they told us she was
out of town, but we passed by on Saturday at about 7:30 and found her.
She told us she still wanted to get baptized, so we started rushing
around trying to find Elder Burnett because he's our district leader
and he has to do the interview. We finally got it arranged for another
elder to come do the interview. By then, it was already about 8:30 and
we have to be in the house at 9:30 so we were gonna do the interview
and the baptismal service in less than an hour with no help from the
ward....which we usually don't have anyways. We rushed to Fernanda's
house to find her for the interview, but then she told us that she
couldn't. It was kind of a let down, but she's gonna get baptized this
week probably. So yeah. That was our new years. We went and bought
some Lechon...pig? Pork? and heated it up in the oven and ate that.
Then we just sorta sat/laid around until midnight because we knew we
wouldn't have been able to sleep anyways because of the fireworks.
That's awesome that big fireworks are now allowed up there in Utah. I
bet it was awesome seeing that from the window. The new house looks
really awesome. Are we kinda on a corner or a...bend...thing?

Wow, sounds like Grandpa's gonna be living in luxury. That's awesome.
That'll be a lot more tranquilo(still don't know how to say tranquilo
in english. Tranquil doesn't sounds
quite right.) for him.

So yeah. Here comes Valiant change. I probably am staying here. I
already trained, so I'm probably not training again. Also, I'm a
pretty new Zone Leader, so I'll probably just stay as Zone Leader and
finish the mission stressed out of my mind here in Melo. We led the
mission in baptisms this month. We tied with 33, so I'm pretty happy.
33 might be a stake before I leave and that's what I've wanted to see
since I was there. Things are looking really good down here, but I'm
looking forward to seeing what it's like up there with our stake
rearrangement and such. That'll be cool because then I'm not gonna be
the only new guy in the ward.

Anyways, time's up. Have a nice week. Have a happy new year and I'll
talk to you next week!


--
Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means. The
Lord be with you all. The salutation of Elder Parry with mine own
hand, which is the token in every email: so I write. The grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.