The Great Divide‏...

...was an episode of Avatar: the Last Airbender that was meh. But it was also what we did to Atlacomulco over the last week!

New Year's Eve, Elder Emch, my old companion and one of the Assistants right now, called me and said, "Hey, you gotta divide the area for Sister misionaries that will be coming and get them a house and a map and x amount of things." Told my companion, and the next day, off to work, searching for pretty much everything. It was pretty stressful, getting the money to get their house rented, the furniture that was necessary (everything), get some things fixed up, all while taking care of the Area at the same time. It was quite a bit of work, filled with stressy things and whatnot. BUT THEN THIS HAPPENED

I bought a nice little coat. I know that it's real because I still find little twigs and those spikey things - thorns - you find on plants in it. I think I've gotten most of them out. It's really warm and nice.

But anyways, about the division some more: What an answer to my prayers! There are a lot of less active members here in Atlacomulco, and the weekly assistance has been on a general downward trend. Maybe it's just because of holidays and whatnot, but even so, I was quite worried about the wall of work that was facing us. We couldn't find time to go to pueblos that we needed to visit, and we weren't getting many people to church each week. But now we're four missionaries, and that makes everythign a whole lot easier - we divided the area in half, and the sisters have plenty of people to visit, so now Elder Riveros and I only need to find people for ourselves, which will be a lot easier for us since we know the area so well.

Also, 4 people that I'd never even met came to church because the members brought them. I was delighted! So, now we've got people to teach in one of the pueblos in which I've wanted to see a lot of progress.

On New Years Eve, we watched another movie - the last one until next Christmas - called Turbo. It's pretty funny, but I'm sure that it'd be even better in English, as one of the central characters is a Mexican, saying things like "Santa Maria!" "We can go to bautizos, confirmaciones, quincenarias..." amongst other things. Always better in the native tongue, I say. My companion is agreed - movies are better in English, which he's working on learning. It's just to hard for me to speak pure English with him though, so that makes it harder for him.

Also we ate some Rosca de Reyes last night.  I pulled out one of the many muñequitos. (Tiny plastic baby baked in a sweet bread--whoever finds it in their piece gets to host next year's New Year's party!) Luckily, the Bishop and his family understand - and to be honest, I don't think they really hold to that tradition too strongly.

Well, that's that for this week. Atlacomulco is now a much smaller area, and we've got just as much work to do - but over a smaller area, which makes it easier.

Thanks for all your support and I hope all of you can have a good 2014! This year's going to be great!

Elder Newman.