Happy New Year!

Sunset out our window

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Our New Years Eve wasn't much more exciting than yours was. We had some of the other elders over until 8 when we had to be back in our apartments. We stayed up for a little while but decided to set the alarm for 11:55 and just go to sleep. We were really bored and there isn't really much to do in the apartment. We woke up at 11:55 and gave a half-hearted whoop and went back to sleep. I actually had a New Years resolution! I'm starting to write in my journal every night! And so far I'm 3 for 3! I don't want to forget about all the experiences here so I am writing them all down. Plus Elder Young has written in his everyday his whole mission. And we are working out every morning now. We have some weights and determination. We went to the flea market again this week because we love the flea markets!

On a more spiritual note, we had an amazing week! We tracted this really ghetto street. We found tons of people to teach though! We found this black guy named Maurice Coon who plays running back for Central Methodist University. He is back in town for Christmas break but he leaves on the tenth. We already have taught him the first two lessons and soft committed him to baptism. When he moves back we are sending the missionaries to his dorm. We also taught Rayneshia Green. She says she saw Elder Young in a dream or something so she let us come back to teach her and soft committed her, too. Unfortunately they are both English... we also found an inactive family from Idaho (we were coincidentally tracting Idaho Street) and they are going to come to church again. We have to turn all the people over to the English elders. We just needed some lessons. We are trying to find Spanish people but they are sprinkled everywhere so we are having trouble finding them. Still most of the work is member work, but we are out knocking doors everyday.

This is the area we were tracting in.

We caught a duck. Yes, a duck. We went to a lake and trapped it in a plastic tote and then sneaked it into the other elders apartment into their bathroom. Two hours later they found him! It was SO funny! It pooped everywhere!! We cleaned it up for them so they weren't too mad about it. The duck prank was the funniest thing ever! Don't worry, no animals were hurt in the production of this prank.We decided that we were going to get the other elders too so we kept the duck over night. The next morning we came over and it had escaped and was over playing with the neighbors. That was the funniest thing ever! Such a good prank!

Darrell the Duck

The members give us food for our apartment and feed us every night, we just buy milk. We are definitely never hungry! And we get quite the variety of food from all over the Latin world! It's great! Still one of my favorites is pupusas from El Salvador. Brother Kersey sometimes takes us out for gator tail. We ate lengua (cow tongue) again last night! It was really good too! It has great flavor and it is really tender meat. So good! I've also had menudo which is the stomach of a cow. That was good too. I also like chicherones of the pork rinds. They come in pieces that are huge, but they are really good. We went to the Vazquez family for Christmas dinner where we ate shrimp and octopus. I thought they would be just strips from the legs but they were whole octopuses - head and all 8 legs! They were bite sized and fairly tasty. I have a goal to eat anything people give me, no matter what part of the animal it is.

Elder Young and I are really getting along! We are a lot alike so we have tons of fun! We even know some of the same people and places so it's fun to talk about it. He works really hard so that is a plus. He's always full of energy so we always are having tons of fun. We work really well together. I hope that we get to stay another transfer, but I will probably leave... maybe we'll beg president... haha.