Happy Thanksgiving (Email) 11.24.2008

Hola mi familia! Como estan? I hope you´re all doing great. Well, what a week again! I just realized I forgot my agenda in the apartment in the bag that I usually use, so hopefully I´ll be able to remember most of what I was going to say.

First off, Dad and AK, I hope you had great birthdays. Fun times! Unfortunately I still don´t have stamps, so your birthday letters will be VERY late. Sorry!

About the debit card, I hadn´t received it as of last week, but I still don´t know for this week if it is here. Don´t cancel it quite yet. If it still isn´t here this week I think I´ll call the office and see if they have it there. Maybe next week I´ll have you cancel it if it still hasn´t gotten here. We´ll see. Hopefully I´ll be able to ask you next week to activate it. :D

Becky, if you read this, I hope your wedding is WONDERFUL this week! Sorry you haven´t gotten a letter or anything yet. It´ll get there eventually. :D Wow, I can´t believe it´s already! Incredible! Tell your family hello for me as well. Nate too!

So things here are going well! Hector Hernandez and Alicia Higuera both had their baptismal interviews on Saturday so they´re set for this Saturday. Yay! Very exciting for them.

So we were able to go and teach Monica´s four boys this week. It was great. Franco (14) Enzo (12) Kevin (9) and Bruno (7 almost 8). Wow, what a crack up to teach four boys. It actually went really well though and we´re excited to keep teaching them. Enzo, Kevin, Bruno, and Monica all went to church the last two weeks. Yay!

We taught Julia and Clara, as well as some of their friends/neighbors on Saturday. It turns out that one of their neighbors, Magali, just moved here from Bolivia two weeks ago, and she´s a member! Clara went to church, but Julia wasn´t feeling well so she didn´t go.

We had a FHE with the ward on Friday night. We´re having one every two weeks on Friday night. Originally we were going to have them in the church, but everyone is so spread out that we didn´t have much of a turn out. So now we´re having them in members homes in different areas, and we´re really encouraging the people that live close by to go. So we had one this last Friday night in Hermana Higuera´s house. It went really well and we had a pretty good turn out!

Here´s a funny story. Earlier in the day Friday I looked at the date, and was thinking that Thanksgiving had been the day before, and couldn´t believe that I had totally forgotten! So in memory of Thanksgiving we had an FHE about gratitude and I told them a little bit about the Thanksgiving tradition. It went really well! Then we realized later that night that it´s THIS week! Funny. Oops! It´s okay, gratitude is good all the time. :0)

Paula Beltran, the girl in the ward who decided to go on a mission, sent in her papers the other day! Yay! It turns out that it usually takes six weeks or so to get your call here. At the earliest! We´re pretty spoiled back home. I only waited like 2 weeks if I do recall.

Dad, it was fun to read about the stuff with the Spanish branch. The temple dedication, the activity, etc... It´s fun to learn about other cultures and experience it a little bit.

Something interesting, is that I am always very suprising to hear how much the people here know about the United States. The people here know more about the new President in the US than I do! They´re all very involved and interested. Wow.

The other day I read in Alma 30, and I realized that it talks about many of the lies that ¨the enemy of righteousness¨tries to tell us. It was pretty eye opening. I don´t like it!

I´m trying to simplify my teaching. It turns out that a lot of things just make sense in my head, and it´s hard to find a way to explain what I know. Why is honesty important? It just is! It´s really good though because it makes me think about why things are important, and the consecuences of different actions. It´s one thing to understand principles, and it´s another thing to try to teach the principles. As you all well know. :)

Dad, gracias! Hna. Riquelme helped me translate the faith story! Now I just need to memorize it.

Mom, I´m sure your talk went great. You sound just busy, but hope you´re doing well. Thanks for all your letters, love and support.

AK, Ryan, and Nyah, how are things going? I can´t believe how much Nyah is talking. From letters it sounds like you´re all doing really well. Don´t work too hard.

Aaron, I got the letter from Lisa about your last water skiing experience for the season. What a crack up! We have the weather here in Argentina for water skiing! In my mind the month is June - not November!

Shari and Orrin, how are you doing? Shari, that´s nice that you´re not doing the interviewing anymore. One less responsibility so you can get other things done. How´s Brandy? Her kids? Do you still do a lot of things with them?

Lisa and Jordan, hola! Thanks for the update with Hallie. I loved the ¨folgers¨ / fold your arms story. I love it! I can´t believe she´s running around your house. I really can´t imagine. Jordan, good luck with finals. They´re coming up right? And Lisa, I´m glad your enjoying work more these days. I have noticed that people seem to be a little healthier here. Well, I don´t know. Maybe just different health problems. Also, I think the people in general have different ideas of the cause of health problems. Interesting.

Well, what else? Lots to do and not enough time to do it! During our weekly planning we try to think about all our investigators, where they live, and how we can meet with all of them. It´s tricky to meet with them two or three times every week when they live in ¨todos lados¨. It´s a good challenge though. It works out. :)

I hope you all have a wonderful day. Be strong. Thank you all for your testimonies, and remember that I have a testimony that this is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He has a perfect plan, we just have to follow it. I have recently come to realize more, that this life is all about changing! We´re not perfect, but we can, and really should be, changing every day for the better. It´s all possible through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. However, if we don´t change, and really repent, asking for forgiveness, it´s like Jesus Christ suffered in vain. Like He never suffered for us. But He did! What an opportunity to become better. :D

Remember I love you all!

Love Always,
Hermana Jana Banana Pincock