January 6th, 2012

Dear Family,

The work is going really good out here! Despite the occasional door slammed in our face or the born again Christian that wants to tell us that we are leading souls down to hell, things are going good.

It does not feel like Christmas at all here. It is so warm most days and everything is so green. In Texas everything dies during the winter, but here everything stays really really green. It is super weird.

Thank you so much for all the gifts. They are wonderful. Thank you for everything guys! My picture frame runs all the time that I am back at the apartment. Thank you also for the letter holder. Now all my letters are nice and organized.

(These are all answers to my incessant questions.)
I do have a laundry bag. Nana and Papa bought me one at the Missionary Mall.

We have washing machines at our apartment complex. We do our laundry every Monday morning.

Claire is a junior this year and really wants to go to U.T.

It sometimes can get into the 50's here, but it never gets colder than that and that is only at night/morning.

My favorite member dinner would probably still be Thanksgiving with the Keesters. They had such good ham and turkey and homemade stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes and yams. We just had dinner with them the other night and Br. Keester had Piano man music, so I played while he sang. That was really fun. He is a really cool guy. A smart doctor, helped me with my sprained ankle

Our bishop is an Asian German. His parents are from China, but he grew up in Germany and went to college in the USA and now teaches at UCI. He is an awesome bishop and really helps us out.

I am only over one ward. The youth here are actually pretty cool. A couple of them play ball with us on pday. There are some weird ones but not quite so many as we are used to. :)

So the short missionary in one of the pictures is Elder Gonzales and he was in our stake when President Kuttler was in the presidency. We got our Patriarchal Blessings from the same patriarch. Just thought that would be cool to let you guys know.

I love you guys so much and thank you for all that you do.

Love, Connor