Jan 2, 2017

Jan 2, 2017 - Feliz ano Nuevo.  So right after I emailed you guys last week me and elder Udall went to this burger place and got some food, I got a burger and he bought these quesadillas.  We played basketball right after and he almost died; he got soooo sick.  On Tuesday we had divisions with Elder Salmon and Elder Mayorga.  I went with Elder Salmon and we actually had a really good time.  I learned a lot from him, he’s a really good missionary.  It’s hard cause you wanna know Spanish but ultimately you wanna know how to be the most effective and successful missionary.  Some believe it’s just about working hard and some believe it’s all about working smart but Elder Salmon has it figured out, it’s a mix of both and he just really knows what to do and its really because he’s guided by the spirit.  I think it’s not just cause he has experience in the mission (by the way everyone in our district is from the same MTC group, they all have been out for 13 months).  Anyways, we went back and found out that they had to stay in the pench (apartment) the whole day because Elder Udall had bad diarrhea and had to go like every few minutes, which was really disappointing because they had some really important visits to make and now were pretty behind with our investigators because he couldn’t leave the pench (apartment) until SATURDAY – ahhhh, we were both soooo frustrated cause we basically lost a whole week. During those three days I just studied Spanish almost the whole day, luckily I was able to do divisions with Elder Salmon for the last few hours in the day and Elder Mayorga watched over Elder Udall.

New Year’s Eve was pretty nuts.  We switched our studies around that day from the morning to the evening so we had to leave the pench at 9am and get back by 6pm!!! That’s how crazy it can get here like these people here are crazy, like I’m being serious, I didn’t think people could behave this way.  So we basically did our studies and ordered ice cream, which is another sweet thing is you can order just about everything to be delivered to you, and then of course the fireworks which were pretty sweet.  I could literally do a 360 and see fireworks everywhere and it lasted for like almost a half hour.  Anyways it’s great to hear from you guys again and I love seeing all your pictures.  Today I just read who our new mission president is.  It’s President Resek.  He’s a Latin but lives in Utah.  I don’t know that much about him except his son is in this mission and he will be serving under his parents for a transfer, like that would be soooo nuts hahaha, I’m not sure if I would like that hahahaha.  Anyways his name is Enrique Resek and his wife is Sandra Resek.  Apparently there pretty great they should come in around July 1 so it’s pretty exciting but sad too President Robertson is pretty great.

Love you guys - Elder Maller