Hello!

Happy 2014 to you as well!  I went to bed at 10:30 this year! It sounds like Adam had a blast though.  I can’t believe it is 2014, that is just crazy! 2013 flew right by. I keep thinking about how fast it went. It was an eventful year that’s for sure! We haven’t played Battleship yet, but Jenga has gotten a few games out of it. The Christmas package still has got a few things in it. I love having the pancake mix and syrup. The Peanut Butter was a slam dunk as well!!! There is no peanut butter, only "groundnut paste" here. It is not good haha. But there is jam from Thailand that is really good so I have been making PBJ sandwiches like every day!!!! They are really good. A birthday package? Hmmmm...well m & ms are always good and I could use some more of that Suave 3 in 1 body wash stuff. That lasted a long time but it’s on its last leg. Peanut butter is good, and the granola bars were awesome too. Just the small things are nice really. I have enough soup and potatoes. Yeah I am almost 19, which is strange haha. But before you know it I will be the big 2 0.  The ipod has been awesome, there are some good things on there,

The work here in Axim has been very difficult. I would go so far as to say this has been the hardest two weeks of my mission so far. It’s going good though, the other missionaries are sweet. Elder Larsen is getting used to things too so that is good. But just the fact that we only have half the area has made it difficult to have lessons planned every day. Also, lots of our area is far from the church. We are supposed to only teach people within a 30 minute walking radius from the church, but that is virtually impossible. And there is not a lot of English in that area either sooo... But we are supposed to teach 15 lessons every week and I was scared we weren’t going to meet that standard. As we were tallying up our numbers last night, I saw that we had taught 26 lessons, which to be honest is really quite amazing. 30 is the golden apple just out of reach, so 26 is dang good. I suppose I was so stressed about trying to always be busy that I did not notice the help that God gave us to meet our goal. I know He has helped us and me so much this week. It’s stressful, but like I said, can’t complain when those things happen. We have 3 people we are planning to baptize on the 18th. We had to delay one because we just found out he has a word of wisdom issue, so we will have to work on that. But really, I feel like sometimes I just push myself too hard to always be busy or occupied that I don’t recognize the tender mercies the Lord gives us. Sometimes you just have to breathe and look around yourself.  I am confident that we will figure out the problems we are having in this new area, it will just take patience I suppose.

I talked to the Bybees and they actually used to live in Riverdale but have retired to St George. But she wanted your phone number so I gave it to them. So hopefully they will call you or something! That would be really cool! I think they go home this week, so the new couple will be here too. That will be interesting to see how it goes. We don’t have much planned for today, it’s just gonna be nice to relax a little bit.  

Just found out we are teaching another polygamist, what the heck hahahaha. It’s an awkward situation because he knows it’s wrong and wants to baptize, but he can’t leave one of his wives and kids on their own. So that’s difficult. But it’s a good thing polygamy isn’t a thing back home. Seems like it creates a lot of issues hahaha. The fishers go out to sea on boats and they go all night! So I’m not sure exactly what they do but they work hard! I have not ever helped them, not sure they would want me to and not sure I could hahaha.  The people really are very caring for our welfare and stuff, they are very considerate for the most part which is awesome! They are great people! But thank you for all you do! I love you guys more than anything!!! I will talk to you next week!