¡Feliz año!‏

Well, Christmas went better than I'd expected. On Christmas Eve, we were allowed to watch "Rise of the Guardians" and "Monsters BYU" I mean "Monsters University." While I was watching the first, I was paying a little bit more attention to the animation than the movie itself, and I was thinking, "Oh, I gotta be a part of this!" Later, during Monsters, I couldn't help but notice how good everything looked there as well. Pixar's animation has improved greatly. Unfortunately, nobody wanted to talk about the animation afterwards, just the movies. Lame.

I'm pretty sure my decision to be an animator can't be changed anymore. It hasn't been changed in over a year, so that's a pretty good sign.

I'm glad you enjoyed the Skype call, Mom! About the pencils, I FINALLY FOUND THEM! A little expensive, yes, but probably cheaper than sending them in mail. By that, I mean if you want to send me more pencils, you can - I have 6B, 4B, 2B, HB, 2H, 4H, and 6H. So if it's not any of those pencils, I will more than gladly accept them.

Anyways... the pueblo was absolutely dead on Christmas and the 26, too. There was nobody in the streets, and it took us forever to find a taxi to take us back home at night. So I'm expecting New Year's to be pretty much the same. And it helps to know that the stuff in the journal was forgettable - it means I probably didn't miss anything. I hope y'all enjoyed your time with Jacob - I'm  sure he's realized, just like I did, just how valuable the time with the family is and how rare it becomes after we reach that point in life.

Anyways, about the things I've been doing recently.

Last night, was pretty good.

We'd had an appointment with a less active family in a small town a little far from Atlacomulco. We got into the Taxi, and the guy tried to help us find their street, but in the end, we couldn't find it. going off of what someone else had said, he dropped us off at an elementary school. As Elder Riveros and I began to try to figure out how to get to their house, the taxista backed up and signalled for us to come over.

"I was curious of where it was, so then I went looking for it and found it. Hop in! I'll take you over there." So he did and he dropped us off at the street. We found her apartment, knocked the door, got in, and then the family gathered together.

Then we taught the lesson to the less active family. Being the first time we'd found them (the sister was very nice in guiding us to her house - no trickery nor any of that! She also didn't turn us away, say she didn't want anythign to do with the church, didn't say she was still Catholic, and all sorts of other helpful things), Elder Riveros and I decided to teach them lesson one. so, we did.

At first, I felt like we'd been rushing it - or perhaps better said, messing it up. We briefly explained the first three principles, then explained the earthly ministry of the Savior a little bit more detailed. We then reched the Great Apostasy, and we spent more time on it than normal, explaining how God had known it was to happen and how things had been corrupted and changed and that the reformers tried to fix it all up, but without the guidance of God, they only managed to cause more confusion, especially in the United States. We then threw in a short video of the Restoration.

The video itself was very powerful, but even more powerful were the questions we made afterwards.

We asked the Mother how she'd felt, and told us that the part about the Great Apostasy really impacted her. She hadn't remembered all the details nor that all that stuff had happened - nor that God wasn't surprised about the Apostasy at all, and that even in the old testament they'd known it was going to happen. I was surprised - I thought we'd spent too long explaining that.

We then asked her older daughter how she'd felt during the video. She said that she'd felt like she was in Joseph Smith's position - she too, was very confused about religion. She wasn't sure which was the truth, since her father is from one relgion and her relatives on her Mom's side are from another. I could tell that she was seriously confused and concerned about the subject. I quickly opened to Moroni 10:3-5 (for those of you who might not know what it says there, you can find it online at lds.org) and read her the verses. I then bore my testimony, that I know that God will answer our questions about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, because I too have done so. I've asked God as well to receive my own personal witness if the Book of Mormon is the truth, and he has told me unmistakably "Yes." I then promised to each and every person in that room that they too can know - they just need to kneel and pray to God and ask him if it really is true. I then felt the Spirit touch me, and I felt my own conviction in my testimony. It was fantastic.

We then noticed it was almost 9:00, so we wrapped things up and headed out. As we were walking to find a taxi to take us back to Atlacomulco, a taxi stopped nearby. The driver was the same driver that had taken us over to that part of town, so we hopped in. Since it was the third time we'd crossed paths, I contacted him (something I should've done the first time we crossed paths). I'm positive God has something planned for him, otherwise we would't have found him not just twice, but three times.

Anyways, I've got to go, but I'm not saying goodbye - I'm just waiting until the next time! (Something one of our investigators always says.)

Thanks for all your support,

Elder Newman