2014!

Happy new year all! I hope you all have made your new years resolutions, and I am proud of anyone who has still kept up with them until now.

So I ate some pizza hut today with a bunch of missionaries after we played basketball. It was all you could eat for like 5 bucks. So naturally I ate 12 slices. I didn't win though, there is a new elder who is from peru but looks like a ripped Islander. He ate 14. Cheater. But I regret it now. My stomach isn't as big with all those parasites in there... only joking.

So Hermana Hunt is still in the same area but is training a peruana. crazy! I hope she doesn't overwork herself.

I am in my same area with elder Menendez. He is from Uruguay. And he wouldn't like it if you said he was from argentina. They don't like each other very much.

But my comp is super great. He speaks pretty good english. He knows even the slang, cuz he learned english from movies and missionaries. He has 8 or 9 months in the mission. But he is super great. We got home and he says, hey lets put up some paper on these windows so people can't see us when we walk in and our of the bathroom, I like my privacy. I was like, YES!!! And then we come in and we clean everything, he does the dishes, we make a nice little whiteboard out of a big sheet of paper  and clear duct tape. Its great. Super organized, I love it. His accent is super chuchi. Super fancy, rich. Like British to us I think. Very formal. It's fun.

Hey, Happy Birthday tomorrow mom!!!!! I can't believe you are turning 25 again??!!!!! Hahahaha

Well my other watch broke. So I am on my 3rd watch. But the olimpia shirt was still worth it.

So when Elder Herrera said goodbye to everyone, everyone was gathered at a members house. Like 30 people between the missionaries and the member. The whole presidency was there, basically we could have held the ward council and then some. We ate our 3rd dinner of the night (oh......... sooooo fulll.....) and then had cake. Well Rodrigo, the 1st counselor, decides to put some cake in the face of Hermana Villanueva, who was on her last day as a missionary. Well she goes and puts some in the face of Hermana hunt. Well hermana hunt is a little competitive and wouldnt have that. She drops her bag, runs over to the cake, grabs a nice handful of cake and starts chasing down this 30 year old peruvian hermana villanueva, and covers her face in cake. Then someone got Herrera, and he tried to kiss rodrigo on the cheek... THats when it got weird. But I made sure to stay as far away from the cake as possible. Not that the cake wasn't good, but ya know, its bad for the skin... hahaha I didn't want a cake face.

So apparently the other day someone threw a beer can and it hit the head of Elder Hathaway! HAha super exciting stuff. I guess the same guy pulled a knife on his brother or something but hey, they just weren't ready for the message right? Haha

So we made brownies early in the week for a baptism we were planning for marcelo. Then as the week went on we realized we had eaten them all already. So naturally we made more for the baptism that day.

So the baptism. We were planning on marcelo. We didn't think eduardo the son of cleto and nelida would be able to because he was leaving to travel. But it rained Friday and Eduardo didn't leave!!! So we prepared everything to be able to baptize them both.

Well we gave the family of Eduardo some money so that they didn't have to walk the whole 7 kilometers again. But they used it on food and walked anyways. Gah!! Whatever. At least they got there.

Well Eduardo was there and all ready, but marcelo wasn't. We called his sister karina and she said she didn't know hwere he was. We called again later and they said that they were in a different city visiting family. What??? He didn't show up for his own baptism. WHat??

Well we were able to baptize Eduardo. It was so great. He had given up smoking 2 weeks ago with the help of a ctr ring that I gave him from my mom and told him to put on the hand that he smoked with. And he gave it all up! Super cool. The first thing he said to me after the baptism was, you got me all wet! Haha he also said how much of a weight he felt lifted from him. Super cool.

Ok so I rediscovered bacon. We made bacon burgers for lunch one day. Wahoo!! ohhh yeah.

Oh one more thing about Elder Menendez. He has lost 55 pounds on his mission. No joke. Crazy stuff.

One thing to ask for the next package, whenever it may be. One of those beanbags from home that you can heat up and cool down for your daily pain needs. That'd be delightful. I can't wait to open this next package. Shortning, peanut butter, my prayer rug, a beanbag, you know, the normal pleasantries of life.

Haha well its been great. I will send the pics next week, the hermanas found out our secret cyberweb cafe...... fat. We will just have to write earlier.

Oh and Hermana Braunersrither is in my district now! And our district leader is elder willes, he is super cool.

Well until next week, when who knows what baptisms will happen or not,

Love Elder Jake Simpson