January 5, 2010

Hello family!!!!
Happy New Year!
Happy Anniversary! (Anniversaries, Grandma too!)
Happy Pregnancy! ha :)
I'm so stoked about your baby Melissa and Jason!!!!!!
Yep, Carmen's baptism was great, and her daughter loved the service, went to church a couple times now, is taking the discussions, and will be baptized as soon as she marries the guy she's living with, who happens to be an inactive member with a super strong testimony who only isn't active cause he feels guilty. Soooo, they will be a very powerful asset to the church one day. Super smart and powerful family. Carmen's sister Nelida decided to wait til she comes back so she can be baptized by us so theres another this change (both of us are staying!!!! which probably means next change I'll stay again and he'll leave). A bunch more are preparing to be baptized, so hopefully as a zone we can have a lot more baptisms than last change (3 in total eesh, but one zone in the mission had 20 this last WEEK haha just depends on where you are!)
This week a lady in our ward who was baptized about a year ago (mom of Josè, one of our investigators) asked us to help her stop smoking cause she never actually stopped when she was baptized (yikes) and decided it was time, so we directed her through the churches program and after 40+ yrs of smoking a pack a day-ish shes been smoke-free for almost a week and has no urges. Victory!!!!!!!!! The greater part of our work in this ward is bringing people back into the fold who were lost from being offended and such and we've had a TON of success with inactives and such. Hopefully that will lead to more references for future missionaries here!
New Years Eve we stayed at our place and couldn't really see fireworks so just kinda layed there listening to bombs for an hour haha that evening we ate with the family Rosa who added me on facebook, so you can accept and they posted pics already I think.
Thats pretty cool about the attic! Sorry about my stuff.
Congrats on your wonderful weather, I am more than willing to trade. It's been super hot, except for yesterday morning was freezing and we had interviews so we went across town under a blue sky in the morning and an hour later when we left it was downpouring. We didn't have any umbrellas, so my suit and everything got soaked through and I got a funny picture :) I was grateful I didn't get transferred having to take a bunch of wet clothes cross-country in my suitcase.
Next time your at the grocery store you should see if they have ostrich meat. It's soooo goooodd and healthy and cheap here! Sounds weird but you should try it haha.
I'm sorry to hear New Moon was great. That means it made money and they'll make more :( ugh
You should go see Avatar! I see trailers and posters of it everywhere and it looks pretty cool!
Could you look up Sambayòn for me? We get it served to us creamed and frozed like icecream all the time by members and investigators and I think it tastes super alcoholic, and I've asked other missionaries and stuff but noone knows what it is.
Well, time is up, I'm glad to hear all of your good news!!!! I miss you all!!
Montevideo is a blast and I'm grateful to be able to stay here! Mom, you forgot to send me Hma. Hortons reference to look up here in Sayago!
Peace! 1Peter1:7
Elder Magnusson