Elder Mason Shoaf: Week 68

Well, this last week was a special week with it being Christmas and all that stuff. So it was awesome talking to you guys and seeing how all of your are doing. Thanks for making my Christmas even better, to see all your faces and how much you guys have changed too. All of you guys have changed sooooo much, especially Sidney, all just growing up so fast and just continuing with life while I am here. Hope you all had a great time together!!

But with it being Christmas this last week, missionaries get a little trunky.....or homesick, or lazy just because they have an excuse. We tried not to do so, but tried to work as much as we could and get visits in during the week. So we had a good week overall with work, not crazy, just trying to focus on seeing new people progress. Because we almost have no one progressing, just 1 teenager Yessmeri that is really interested in the Gospel. Sad thing is that she gets basically jipped every Sunday having to watch their family store because everyone else leaves her alone. But we are trying to get her to attend, she has the desires and its great! Also we have councils from our mission president to work more with the less actives, and this week tried hard to do so. Because with Christmas around, people love to open their doors and talk with us, we found a lot of new less actives that way. And our attendance in church going up with all these less actives coming back to church. We can see a lot of potential in working with these new less actives, and really seeing the ward progress. One awesome experience I had was when we did find one of these less active sisters and she LOVED our visit. She felt very alone, and she really needed someone to talk to, and it felt so nice to see that we could help her out! So a pretty great week to share the wonderful Christmas Spirit with many, visiting lots of members to see how they are doing also, but a great week!!

Other random highlights....I had turkey for Christmas and a very american styled Christmas lunch. So good, the members invited us over for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, they are just so nice and gave us some gifts too. They feel bad for us because we dont have family members here with us, but it is an awesome opportunity to be here as a missionary, wouldnt regret being here.

With Christmas passed by, kinda seems empty a bit, but now we have to get to work and get going again. I have 1 more skype call for Mothers Day and then Ill be home before all of you know it!! Crazy to think about it, I dont want to get trunky as they call it. Lots of work to go for sure, ready to go!! 2016 here we go!!

1-2. Went out to eat with our pensionista and her mom, trucha (trout)

3-4. During Christmas, their form of eating fruit cake is called Paneton. It is so good to me, but my comp hates it now. Because you eat it everyday before Christmas like 3x. But its just a big bread muffin with raisins and fruits.