Family and Friends,

I am going to be completely honest... I thought a lot about Star Wars this week... wow, I am really excited to see that movie when I get home! I even had a nightmare that the movie was horrible, starring a morbidly obese Mark Hamill... Yet now that I hear that it was really good I am at peace, more or less.

Now that that's out of the way... Alrighty, this week was a bit frustrating. My new area, Pueblo Nuevo, is also called the land of faith because it is infamous for yeilding little success... but also the occassional miracle. It is difficult bercause it is loaded with different churches and pastores bent on wrecking any progress we make. Although, I am still very excited to work here and see if I can't make some miracles happen. The hard part is my comp has been here one transfer already and a little burnt out because he hasn't had a baptism here. When I arrived he only had 3 investigators. It is difficult whereas he is DL, so his comp has to really take charge of the area and his last comp from what I understand just spent time with members when he did divisions. I am going to start having my first divisions here this week, we are going to throw down!!!

This last week we found a very positive family. The family comprises of a single mother named Ester and her 7 children. Ester is 31 and her husband recently died in a motor accident, thus she is left to care for all of those kids and can't work much because she has two brand new twins. As you can probably imagine they are incredibly poor and live with her parents in a house made of corrugated metal smaller than the music room back home... about 15 people in total live in the house. The major bread-winners of the family are the father and several of his grandkids. Those kids work 12 hour days harvesting coffee the oldest of them just turned 14, and the youngest is 7. Yet in spite of all of this they came to church on their own accord the Sunday before last and really liked it all. This Sunday they weren't able to attend unfortunately, but I believe that they are going to get baptized. I am just a bit nervous to teach the Law of Tithing...

We have other investigators as well ,but they are not progressing much, there is one that I really feel like we can baptize but we keep finding him drunk... it's rough

This Sunday was fun because I had to give a 15 minute talk, teach a class, and sing in the branch choir... yet I wasn't very nervous  and the members said that my Spanish was perfect other than 4 words that were poorly pronounced! I feel that I am finally getting really good with my Spanish, more than anything I need vocabulary. Sometimes its hard to know if words are slang or not when I learn them, whereas most of my learning is done speaking and listening. I have accidentally said some rather offensive words without realizing, luckily the people are sympathetic... usually.

Here in the field I have learned a TON about gratitude, I would challenge you all to reevaluate your conditions when thinking to complain, lament, or cry out "why me." I testify to all of you that have access to my emails that you are in reality extremely blessed and privileged. I am not saying that your lives are incredibly easy.  I understand that you are all facing challenges of a different nature, yet I also know that every trial faced with faith and gratitude is conquered on the shoulders of angels. I love you all and I wish you all a merry Christmas! While you are celebrating, opening presents, and spending time with love ones... I will be eating a tamale, Be very, VERY jealous... Elder Davis