From: Elder Joshua Freeman
Subject: Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas!
Date: 29 December 2003 8:24:51 AM EST

ÁHola!

How are you all doing? It sounds like you all had fun Christmas'. Mine was pretty good. This past week was in no way normal at all, from start to finish, but it was still a good one.

On Monday, Elder Bybee spent the morning packing, and we wrote email. Then we got a taxi and went to Centro for change meeting. It was pretty good. We got to watch the "Joy to the World" DVD that just came out, so that was neat. And then right after that, the power went out. Oh well. After that, we said goodbye to people and hi to people I hadn't seen in a while, then we came home. My new companion is Elder Urling. He's from Snowflake, and he has a year on the mission. He's a pretty cool guy. After we got home from Asunci—n, we pretty much just went out to work. We went out and met (well, Elder Urling met them) a couple of our investigators, and then we went by Eugenia's and gave them a little message.

On Tuesday, we had our first Zone Meeting with the new Zone. We don't have a single Latin in our Zone, which is kinda weird. Plus we already don't have any Hermanas. An interesting Zone. We got to watch the Christmas Devotional, so that was pretty neat. After we came home and studied and stuff, we went out to do a charla 1 verification to see if the lady had read, and she hadn't, so we did that with her. We were supposed to have a meeting at the church to plan the branch end of the year party on Saturday, but people were slow in showing up, and we had to go. We went to Valdelice's house and gave them the 2¡ charla again (her husband was there this time) and it went well. He still wants time to think about it though. After the charla, they made us hotdogs, so we ate a little, and then hurried home.

On Wednesday, we went to JosŽ Duarte's house, but he wasn't home, so we talked to his inactive mom for a good long while about the church and stuff. In the afternoon, we went to the church to clean it a little, mostly cutting grass, to prepare it a little for the party on Saturday. We had to leave early to go take some food and stuff from the Rama to a poor family, and then we had a charla with Claudelino, and then a member charla to finish up the night. There were people setting off firecrackers all night long, so it was a little hard to sleep.

Thursday was Christmas! And P-Day. In the morning, we met with the rest of the Zone in „emby to play fœtbol, and to get our Christmas presents from the mission, a CD-ROM with a directory of the mission and pictures from all the areas. After all that, we came home and talked to the families, that was good stuff. Then we made dinner with the other Elders. It was pretty good; chicken, mashed potatoes, salad, rolls. Mighty tasty. After that, we went out and talked to our due–a's (landlady) family that were all here, and they wanted us to share a little message with them, so we did. Then we went out and visited some members, met some new people, and talked with Jorge and Ramona. So that was good.

On Friday morning, we had a charla with JosŽ Duarte, and that went pretty well. We had lunch with our laundry lady family like normal, then came home and studied. After lunch, we went to the (Relief Society/Young Mens President) Duarte's and met their new baby and talked with them a little. Then we were talking to a friend/neighbor of Eugenia's family about the Book of Mormon when we (Elder Urling and I) started to feel kinda sick, like with chills and headache. So we went home, because Elder Urling was finding it hard to think, and we went to bed early. And it just got worse from there. All that night we wee both fever-y headache-y stomach ache-y vomit and diarrhea sick. It wasn't fun at all. We figure it was from some bad water that we drank at an investigator's house, but we're not sure. 

Anyway, it didn't get any better on Saturday like we hoped it would, and we only left our beds to go use the bathroom, and vice versa. We stayed home all day and in the afternoon the other Elders came up to see us and tell us how the ward party went. But it was a pretty blah day. Blah.

Yesterday, we felt good enough to go to church, which was good. After lunch, we had lunch with the branch president and his wife and did the Red de Contactos with them. Then we came home and studied, then went out and visited a few more people before coming home and making dinner with the other Elders.

Today, I'm feeling much better. After this, we're going to go out and have a normal work day, then have P-Day on Thursday again (it being the 1¡ of the year). So, yeah, that should be fun.

Well, it's been a fun year 2003, and it sure went by fast, especially the past 8 months. But I'm really enjoying the work with the people and seeing them progress, while seeing myself progress at the same time. Good stuff.

Well, I'll talk to you all again in 2004. Have fun everyone that's at home, and say Hi to the niece and nephews for me.

I Love You Guys!

Love,
Josh