6 Months - Merry Christmas!

We got to talk to Joseph today! We got his email before we did the phone call, so we'll start with that and then a clip or two of our skype -
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     Subject: Feliz Navidad a Todos!         

Hello everybody and Merry Christmas!! This was a super great week! We have been working really hard with Ilumina el mundo especially in having noches de hogar (family home evenings) and trying to get people to come to church and really saw a lot of miracles! The record for church attendance in the Guatemala Guatemala city South mission in 2017 was 345 and the record so far in 2018 was 335. Attendance meaning investigators in sacrament meeting across the whole mission (9 stakes in the cap and 2 districts outside the capital). So in the multi-zone conference on Thursday President Shumway talked about how this sunday, especially with all the references we've been getting from Noches de Hogar and Ilumina el Mundo, as a mission the goal isi 400. Especially taking in to account a letter the first presidency sent out about this Sunday. He asked each area to double their attendance from the week before and last week was our best week in a while with 5. So we were shooting for 10 which was super ambitious and 8 people came to church! Not 10 but 8 is still super good and as a mission we smashed the old record out of the water with 473 in total! It was super awesome and really we saw a lot of miracles.

Among those who came some came for the first time. Frank, who we found with Elder Aquino back forever ago. FINALLY he can come to church because he is working at a members carwash now and he really liked it. He is a super probably baptism for January and also talks about how it would be cool to be a missionary. Then Gustavo also came for the first time this past week. We found him this past week but he is actually someone I talked to on the bus like 3 months ago. He sat next to a returned missionary who got back this week from a mission in Brazil (did you know there are like 50 missions in Brazil!) named Sergio and Gustavo is now reading the Book of Mormon. He is super pillas and is going to progress a lot. Cristian also came, who was an investigator that told us he didn't want to receive us anymore about 7 weeks ago. He has some problems that are going to be hard to work through but is a good guy and hopefully he keeps coming! Also Vicky came, a lady from New Zealand who is married to an RM named Victor who is part of a super awesome family we eat dinner with every Friday. She is a super good cook and the family is from Nicaragua so they would always make Nicaragua food for Elder Gadea. The son is super awesome and it's super obvious he has a strong testimony but he usually works on Sunday but they got this Sunday off and so he and Vicky came to church and it was super awesome!! Also Another lady named Marielos who is married to a less active guy named Romeo came. Fernando also came and so did Brenda (Ronal's sister) and Brenda (Ronal's mom). We were going to go to the temple with Brenda this past week but had to reschedule it to this week because the day we scheduled it for I totally forgot that the hermanas that give the little tour around the temple had their multi-zone conference. So anyways you probably didn't want to know that many details but we were super excited about it. Lots of miracles.

Also there is some exciting stuff that is going to happen here in Guate soon but they asked us to keep it on the down low a little bit so I'll tell you in a few months. 

Also it is not Christmas in Guate without tamales. Here is a picture of us waiting for the bus this morning. Rockin the new Christmas tie. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!!

And here is me eating a tamale for breakfast as we waited for the bus

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So here's the family blogpost about our skype with him. He called at 11:00 Utah time, 12:00 for him in Guatemala. Mel did this instagram picture commemorating the event.

We talked for an hour. It was so great to see him! Corey asked him what he misses from home. He said he can't really remember much about this previous life he lived, ha, I get that. Good answer.

He was surprised when we mentioned that his cousin Kelsey was married. I know I mentioned that in an email to him, but I get that his time to read and write on p-days is limited, so I get that he missed it, still, kinda funny seeing his "WHAT!?!?" expression.

He was watching the clock (so obedient) and when it was time to wrap up he shared his testimony and led us in a long distance family prayer.

We sure love this young man, I'm already looking forward to Mother's Day!