Another Week in 33 and the Christmas Phone Call

12/20/2010

Dear Family, Mom and Dad,

Well what a week I had. It sure was interesting let me tell ya. The first few days I pretty much traveled all over 33. I did baptismal interviews in Vergara and had several different intercambios (exchanges) with other missionaries in my zone. It’s been great in that aspect. We have really had a fun week of work. On Friday morning about two o’clock, a special bus arrived and took us down to Montevideo for our Christmas concert. The bus had come from Melo which is a town north of 33. The bus had 20 missionaries from the Melo zone on board. I didn’t realize that one of my best friends, Elder Maluff is now serving in Melo and he was on the bus. We stayed up and didn’t sleep the entire night and just talked. It was actually wonderful and quite interesting. Elder Maluff will be finishing his mission here in February and he seems quite excited. It’s crazy to think how fast time has really gone. I was with him for my forth and fifth change of the mission. Next week I will be starting change number 11. I only have six more to go. It made me realize that I have completed well over 2/3rds of my mission… crazy huh? Elder Maluff had a disagreement with President DaSilva a few changes ago. Since then, President DaSilva assigned him as Junior Companion in Melo to finish his mission. He was very, very down, but is happy to be coming to the end of this thing. Apparently his companion is crazy. He told me his companion beat him up the other day and so he’s kinda waiting for a little while longer to see if he can get an emergency change. I’m just glad I’m done with that part of my mission myself.

The Christmas conference was absolutely wonderful. We had an awesome lunch and we were able to visit and enjoy all of our friends from all over the mission. I was talking with Elder Stilwell (my companion from the MTC) and he did mention that his padres could be coming to Uruguay for when he goes home. If so, we could plan to all go out together and enjoy ourselves one night. We shall see. I was expecting to receive my packages this week, but they never came. So now I probably won’t receive them until January. But that’s fine, I’m not really too worried.

My plans for Saturday consist of the phone call. I have a certain time assigned to me that I will call. I will call you at 3 o’clock my time which is 10 o’clock your time. I will call the Yesco number, so just be ready and I will be on the line then. Thank you because I did want to talk to you guys first (mom and dad) for 30 minutes so that will work out perfectly. One last thing… MAKE SURE CINDY IS HOME I WANT TO TALK WITH HER ALSO!!!! I HAVE SOME REALLY IMPORTANT THINGS I WANT TO TELL HER!!!! Oh and you just never know, I might just do a surprise wake up call too like last year.

I loved the picture of mom cleaning the drive way!! It was great well for now I’ll just save my breath because I will talk with you on Saturday. Well I love you all so very much and I look forward to Saturday with great anticipation.

LOVE, JOHN

PS. I included 2 pictures of my zone that were taken this morning. Yes it would be so nice if you could put a little bit of money in my account for this Friday. THANKS