Week Before Christmas! And My B-Day!

(Emailed to Friends)
What a week!  Actually it's been pretty average.  I'll go through it real quick day by day.

Monday last week.  We had a crazy family night at a member’s house.  She has 6 kids under the age of 14 (Hermana Joseline is her name) and it was awesome.  Really fun.

Tuesday.  In the morning we had transfers.  Elder Pawn-Kalilikane is now living in our house and is Elder Decker's companion.  He's from Hawaii.  He's got a twin serving in Peru too. He's crazy.  Super goofy, super fun.  Has a heart of gold.  Always positive.  My comp and him have really hit it off too.  Cracks me up.  They're really goofy and silly together.  I'm pretty close with Elder Decker though so it all works out in the end.  That night we had a few other lessons.  Nothing very exciting.

Wednesday.  I had a quick comp exchange in the morning while Romero was at a meeting.  Elder Solis was with me.  Elder Solis is from El Salvador. We taught one lesson.  I was really, really impressed with him.  He's super funny and goofy, but he taught very, very clearly and it was amazing.  It was cool to see how another missionary teaches.  That day was his 2 year mark of being a member of the church too.  He's been in the mission like 11 months.  So crazy.  Some really amazing people out here. We then had and English class and after the ward Christmas activity that night and it was AWESOME.  Loved it.  It's the first activity the ward has done since I've been here and it was a blast.  Two of the Frias family, all 4 of the Dilone family, and 3 from Lisa's family (One of my recent converts) were all there.  That's a solid 8 investigators.  Very, very successful night.  They presented a message, the youth served an excellent dinner and it was just great.  I loved messing around with the kids and running around talking to people during it.  It was a blast.

Thursday.  First zone meeting of this transfer.  Not too many changes in our zone.  It was good.  Romero's first one as a DL.  He struggled a bit, but made it through it.  Lesson wise the day was rough.  Everything seemed to be falling through.  Really frustrated Romero.

Friday.  Tons of lessons.  Really short ones, but good.  Fun day.  Had some good lessons.  Average day.

Saturday.  Decent lessons too. English class that night.  Not a ton happened either.

Sunday.  So a quick story.  The bishop on Saturday said we were going to be the backups for the speakers on Sunday.  That probably one or two of us would speak.  I figured I wouldn't since last time I spoke I don't think anyone understood me.  None of us really prepared anything.  Then on Sunday turns out we were the whole program.  Just us 4 and a quick testimony of a family.  Ahhh!  We all panicked and were writing our talks during the sacrament.  I was supposed to go last, but we ran out of time so I didn't have to go!  I was a little disappointed, but I was lucky.  Lesson wise we did a ton of walking and had a few lessons.

Today. My birthday!  It's been fun.  We did some cleaning, I opened some presents from home and from Elder Decker, we then went to Megocentro, and met up with Elder Moncada and Elder Ventura there.  I ate some KFC, and scored a great deal on some ties and slacks.  Really happy about that.  Then we came back, made a cake, and that was the day so far.  We have a FHE tonight and it's supposed to be huge so we'll see how it goes!

Romero, Ventura, Moncada, Potokar, Decker, Pawn

Few notes and memories from the week.

My comp introduced some lady as the bishop's wife to some investigators this week and she really wasn't the bishop's wife.  Really funny.

I asked Paula if she was ready for Christmas and she told me Christmas was always really sad at her house.  I felt really bad for asking and realized how great I have/had it.  She also didn't come to the ward party because she was assigned to bring plates and didn't have money to buy them.  My heart ached for her.

We walked through a rap battle going on one night.

We watched this one kid standing on the sidewalk, facing the street, just start taking a pee right there.  This country is crazy.

Not sure if I mentioned this, but we had the primary program last week.  It was fantastic.  I loved it.

I believe that's about all for this week!  Thank's for all the birthday wishes!  Hope you all have a fantastic Christmas!

Love you all.
Elder Easton Potokar.

(Emailed to Family)
I didn't have time to make a list again this week so I'll just try to think of things off the top of my head.

Wasn't able to find a speaker today at Megocentro.  I'm thinking sending one to me might be the best idea.  Elder Pawn has one I've been using that I can plug the micros into, but can't choose the song which bothers me.  It'll work for a while though.  I'll check la sirena this week so don’t' buy me one just yet.

Snagged a germx for my bad (uploaded pic) and a file folder binder to hold papers and a a-z tab dividers for my 3 ring binder on Thursday. I felt I should be using Germx more so I bought one to strap to the outside of my bag.  Then I'll just fill it up once it empties with my big one.

Today I snagged some really good deals at Megocentro.  Some nice ties.  4 for 1000 pesos.  I bought two and Moncada and Romero each bought one.  That's 500 pesos (like 15 bucks) for two solid ties.  Also found some slacks on sale.  One for 400 pesos (10 bucks) and one for 600 (like 15 bucks).  One fits really well and the others a little tight, but will work.  I'm really happy with that.

Unfortunately, Nicolas has been going a little cold this week.  His wife (not really married though) and step daughter are eating everything we give them.  Reading, come to all the activities, church, everything.  He just lost the fire.  He did come to sacrament meeting and I think he'll come to the FHE tonight.  We'll see what we can do with him.  Relight his fire.  I really like Nicolas's daughter, Melony, who's four years old.  She's my little buddy.

Family Frias is doing OK.  Haven't been reading or coming to church.  They live really busy lives and it is December.  Maybe after December. The dad should be able to come to church starting in January and I think that'll make them all start to do more.  We'll see how it goes.

We were also going to put a baptism date yesterday for Caolina Renosos, but her dad said she wasn't home.  Her parents are active members, her husband is inactive and she's taken the missionary lessons twice, but wasn't married and couldn't come to church before.  Now she can and she came on Sunday so she should be an easy baptism.  She has a testimony so that's even better.  Her daughter is 10 as well so we're going to see if we can baptize her too.

Another experience this week that was hard.  A little girl showed me her light up princess shoes.  How could that not remind me of Lydia?  That was rough, rough, rough for me.  I was close to tears in the middle of that lesson. I really enjoyed Lydia's letter.  I'm pretty connected to the whole family, but her.  It's hard sometimes because of that.

Also for Christmas.  We work until 7 on Christmas Eve and don't work Christmas morning.  It's too dangerous. It's looking like I'll call at 6 o clock here, which is about 3 o clock there. We're eating with a member that night so we'll see how it goes down.  I'll shoot you an email when I'm ready to get on.

Eating with member rule changed.  We can now eat with members on weekends and holidays and ward activities.  Investigators too.  That's huge.  I'm way excited about that.

We're going to eat with the Patriarch again on Christmas.  It'll be really good.  I'm looking forward to it.  I think we'll use the internet cafe. (for Skyping) We'll see how it goes though.  They said they're open that day, but they don't know until what time.  We'll see what happens.  We're only supposed to use a member’s house if we absolutely can't find anywhere else. (We received an email from Easton a few days later and we will be Skyping him on Friday instead.)

Thank you for all your birthday gifts too!  I'm excited to try my new garments and the books you sent.  I'm pumped.  Elder Decker also gave me the pink tie in the pictures and a notebook, Elder Moncada gave me a green DR shirt, and some hermana who was at Megocentro bought me a keychain.  Really cool.  It's been a fun day. l'm blessed it was on a p-day!

Our zone is going to do a white elephant thing on Friday.  The month after the mission tours we have a temple trip usually. I could use a huge favor from you.  We're going to the temple in the first or second week of January.  Would you mind searching for a family name for me?  I was going to do it today, but we didn't have nearly as much time on the internet as usual.

I got 5 letters this week.  Opened a few of them, and will open the rest of them tonight.  I'm definitely a very, very spoiled missionary. It's a huge blessing.  Means a ton to me.  Helps me move along.  I'm just starting to feel my personality surface (especially with Elder Decker) and getting a hold on things.  I just need to learn to lead lessons and the work.  Be a senior comp.  And then I feel like I'll be completely comfortable being a missionary.  Intercambios make me really nervous for that reason.  I don’t' feel like I know how to direct an area like that.

It's really weird that it's so hot here during Christmas.  Definitely doesn't feel like Christmas too much.  Elder Decker and I just sat in his room and listened to White Christmas one day.  It was weird. Not a ton of rain here.  It gets pretty cool at night though and in the mornings.  Makes for cold showers, but feels great outside.  I don't know if it's because I've gotten used to it, or if it's because it's actually nice out.  Probably a little of both haha.

Think that's about all. Looking forward to Thursday!  Like a ton.
I Love you tons!  Elder Easton Potokar.