Hola, familia y amigos,
First of all, I wanted to thank the following people for letters and Christmas cards that I have received. (Many choose to use DearElder.com. You send an email, and the mission office prints it off and gives it to me.) Thank you to Hermana Flores, Kezia Carter, Jan Wilkes, Kari Marie Stolzenburg, Richard Jamison, Crystal Baysa, and Grandpa Witt! It made my day to hear from each of you. Thank you so much!
We are teaching two jovenes who are progressing in the Amazonas Ward. One is Javier, who is 19, and who is preparing to be baptized this 12 of March. He has a lot of challenges to work through. He has a growing testimony of the gospel and is so sincere in his prayers. Some of his challenges include his neighbors who try to discourage him from joining the church. His family doesn’t necessarily support him in his decision, but they don’t oppose him, which is good. Needless to say, one doesn’t join the Church because it is the popular thing to do nowadays. He also has to decide between joining the Church and finding a job that doesn’t require him to work Sundays. That is a huge challenge here. Most people here have to work 7 days a week all day to support their families with the bare necessities, especially because prices are rising for everything and school is about to start for the kids this month. Wow. Life is tough here.
Nancy is golden. She is 18 and loves the gospel. She is reading the Book of Mormon and wants to be baptized with her sister in August. She has decided August and will not change her mind. Okay! She is solid.
Today is Hermana Rodriguez’s birthday and we are going to have a chocolate fondue party with the zone to celebrate. Mango, banana, animal crackers, Ritz crackers, raisins, peanuts, etc. If it is edible, we are going to dip it in chocolate. And, we splurged and bought a Disney Princess piñata. (Birthdays are big here.) The Relief Society is in love with the dark chocolate brownie recipe we shared with them on Saturday. Wait til they try the no-bake cookies! We joke about planning to open up my own dessert store (pasteleria) here and my companion tells me I should make a recipe book with the title “Recipes to kill diabetics” because there is lots of sugar in the recipes. The irony is that I don’t think I ate so much sugar in the USA. No se.
Last P-day I fell while playing soccer (I was at the point of making a goal) and hurt my wrist. My whole hand swelled up. Luckily, my friend Wendy recommended a gel that helped it to get back to normal. It is still a little sore, but I have an appreciation for my body (and am grateful that it was my left hand and not my dominant hand that was injured).
We spoke on developing Christlike attributes on Sunday and handed out copies of the Christlike attributes activity in Preach My Gospel. We are going to animate our ward to attend General Conference this 2 and 3 of April.
Life is good. Make good choices!
Love, Hermana Christensen
