¡Feiz año nuevo!

¡Feiz aÑo nuevo! [Happy new year] I capitalized the Ñ for you mom hahaha, thanks for the good intention.

Things are going great here! We had a baptism for yesterday however his uncle died the day before so we are postponing it till later this week. His name is Carlos Copca and he is awesome and ridiculously funny and 19 years old. We really enjoy teaching and talking with him.

So I accidently broke my fast early yesterday because the bishop gave me  a “chapuline” to eat, thats a dried grasshopper. yumm actually it wasn’t very sabroso [tasty].

Two neat experiences we had with the convert family Martines Sanches was their first family home evening which we prepared for them.  We sang “Familias pueden ser eternas” [Families can be together forever] taught them that families can be eternal and  then played Uno (pretty sweet huh) and we also brought some microwave popcorn, however they don’t have a microwave so I cooked it in a pot on the stove top they were all very impressed and I gave all the credit to my mom

…Oh this reminds me of a bad joke I learned in the MTC… Why don’t you play Uno with mexicans?……because they take all the green cards   …hehehe  I love the people here so much!

The other neat experience was that Mireya (the mother) signed up to feed us lunch last week, pretty neat. And she fed us lots of vegetables, which for me is a treat.

I’ve been reading  many of the mornings in the Liahona from Nov 2008 its all the discourses from General Conference.   Mom and Dad I real liked “come what may, and love it” by Elder Joseph B. Worthlin , he put a good and humorous perspective on life, you two should read it together, I believe you will enjoy it.

Another thought that struck me, is in the discourse by Elder James J. Hamula “…being sober means being earnest and serious in assessing your circumstances and careful and circumspect in weighing the consequences of your actions. Soberness therefore yields good judgement, as well as measured conduct.” Clearly the application of the word is more broad than the reference to substance abuse, although it gives an interesting insight to what is lost with the use of mind-altering and addictive substances and how important it is to abstain from them. Applied in a broader aspect not to be drunk with emotions, such as anger, lust, jealousy, greed or materialism, all of which have the power to skew our judgment to be less than well measured.

Well… I love you all! and I hope the best for all of us in this new year.

Elder Packer