AJ's email from 12/26

Just a side note that for what-ever reason this post was the most frustrating ever. The pictures are all over the place and wouldn't stay put when inserted. I am done being frustrated though, so...it is what it is! :)
AND...don't miss the best post of all, his testimony in the previous post. 

AJ and E. Sosa at a member's house Christmas Eve

hey everyone, i hope that you all had a great christmas. i know that i definitely had a lot of fun the last 2 days. especially yesterday with elder sosa. it was more like a day for us to relax just once. but ill explain that part later.

          first im just gonna start with the beginning of the week. on monday we taught a really good lesson to a kid named javier. he is 19 and is really amazing as far as being an investigator. he has a ton of the same beliefs and wants to know which church is true. and he learns really fast and understand easily so its so easy to teach him. as long as he has time to teach him and he comes to church, he should get baptized without a lot of effort on our part. and that would be awesome. the only problem is that im probably leaving next week and so i wouldnt be able to see it. but its alright.

      tuesday, wednesday and thursday were pretty boring days. the only thing worth mentioning is the fact that we had our coordination meeting with the ward mission leader for the first time in about 3 months. and it wasnt even a good meeting and was really just a waste of our time. cuz we got to the church at 830 when we had the meeting planned and he wasnt there. so we waited for him to come. and at 915 he finally got there and said alright lets have this meeting quick cuz im gonna go play soccer with the ward. and so it was just a 5 minute thing where we didnt really accomplish anything. but its just another thing that we have to deal with here.

E. Leavitt and ? at the mission party

      then friday was a pretty good day. we had the mission christmas party. and there was good sides and bad sides to having it. the good things were that we are the only mission in chile to get together cuz we are the only mission with area small enough to do it. and another thing was that i got to see friends from other zones and talk with all of them and catch up a little. also elder leavitt, elder braddy and i just messed around and talked the whole time. it was really pretty funny. and finally, we had a white elephant thing with the whole mission. and it was pretty funny the way that they did it. cuz everyone picked their present and then before opening it, we played a game where we had to rotate presents several times and so you ended up with something that someone completely different picked. but it was cool. and i ended up with a cooking apron, which is kinda ironic seeing as how i dont cook. (there is a picture of that)

AJ in his apron...looking good!
I couldn't manage to upright the picture. He looks just as silly with your head tilted sideways!

 then saturday was a good day, for multiple reasons. the first one is obviously the fact that i got to talk to my family. its been since may since i have seen them and so it was really good to see everyone and hear their voices and actually have conversations. but that was definitely the best part of the day. but that ended 

Enjoying Christmas eve

A dinner to remember!

around 8, so we still had another 3 hours in the day to do stuff. so we went to the house of jose and magali (my convert) and we had some soda and ate christmas bread. then we left and on the way to 

Ping-pong...and...pong-ping?!

the dinner we planned, we walked past the house of a family in our retention, and the were having a bbq. so they gave us a little meat to eat and some more soda. so at that point i was already about halfway full and we hadnt even started dinner yet. so we got to dinner and we started around 1030 and it was really cool. we were with a member and her pareja which is an investigator and good friend of ours now. (more pictures of that) and it was a huge dinner and i was stuffed after finishing that and could barely walk home. but just before we left, they gave us each a present to open which was really nice of them and it was the ping pong set for us both cuz we like to play so much. but we didnt up going to bed that night til about 1 so we were so tired for church the next day.

opening presents from the fam

opening more presents from the fam

       then sunday we just had sacrament meeting so we got out at like 11. and we had time to rest and then went to lunch and came back and rested again. and then we went back to the same house that we were at the night before and hung out with them for a couple hours. and then around 8 there was nothing else to do so we just went back to the apartment and starting doing stuff just us. and we ate choripan, played ping pong in our pension, and then made a couple videos which are kinda funny. but it was just a relaxing day.

     so that was about everything. i hope that you all have a good new years and stay safe. take care everyone