Letter dated 7Jan2013

[Dear family and friends, HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope that your holidays were good and that you enjoy a wonderful new year. This is the letter we received from Weston this morning. If you want to send a quick note, just respond to this email and I will forward the note to Weston! Best regards - Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, I´m not sure how I´m supposed to begin this e-mail because I´m still giddy from my present I got today! The mail came today and I saw the lady carrying a GIANT package up to our door and she asked, ´´Is there an Elder Weston here?´´ My companion was disappointed because he´s waiting for a package as well, but I was jumping up and down when I got it into the other room! I definitely wasn't expecting such a great holiday treat such as what you sent to me. I´m not sure if it was the Kool-Aid, Reeses, Cheez-Its, Starburst, Pictures, Dark Knight, DRADLE!!!, pop corn, Michigan momentos, or sick ties that made it so great but I think it was the love that came with it! It made my year! Thank you all so much! I also got all the Christmas letters on the same day and I loved the poems! Such a great family memory gift! Thanks mom! In all honesty, we had a really great week to start of the New Year. We had a bunch of lessons in total even though we had a day that we went to a Zone Meeting for most of the day but the week turned out really good. The highlight was on Sunday when we were blessed to have 11 investigators come to church! It seemed like everyone we've been inviting this past week found time to get up in the morning and come over to church and it was a really special testimony meeting. Many of the members shared their testimonies and I was amazed to listen to many of them talk about their first experiences with the missionaries when they got baptized. It was special for me to realize that we are here to serve the members and help them in our calling we have as elders. It was a great spiritual experience for me in sacrament meeting. We´re also working with Andrea, a 22 year old girl who is living with a family that recently got baptized when I got here, and she wants to be baptized this year, but she needs help to stop doing some things. We´re looking at this as a great opportunity for her to take this chance and take the next step as we work with her. She is the one in the family that helps all the girls get ready for church and she gets involved in our discussions when we visit them. I hope the best for her progress in the upcoming weeks. There is also a family that have come to church 2 weeks in a row, which they haven´t done since this past summer. They look like they are also preparing to take their next steps, which is super exciting for me to have the chance to see this happen for them. Great things are happening in Terrassasourus Rex right now! We finally finished the holidays too! YES! It´s been hard with all the parties that people go to and I hope the we can get back into a solid routine with people getting back to work and school. The last holiday was actually yesterday, named Los Tres Reyes, or The Three Kings. It´s actually a bigger day than Christmas here in Spain and it´s about the three kings coming and giving the gifts to Jesus when he was a baby. There was a big parade and it seemed like it was a blast for the people here. As part of the new year, the mission is starting to get ready to receive all the new incoming missionaries from the new wave that´s coming in. We are now all, as a mission, re-doing the 12 week program for missionaries to learn how to train and also be a better missionary. Also, as a companionship, Elder Wiggins and I are starting to keep a routine for working out in the morning and at night. It includes push ups, P90X, and running when we wake up and our goal is to see how we change in the next 3 weeks. We started it today and we´ll see how it goes! I also have my goals set up and still choosing some other ones that I want for 2013. I just know that this will be a great year. I love you all, more and more each day! Élder Xander Weston Schindler P.S. We have to go back, Kate.... P.P.S. Since I got the super incredible package just now, you can take your time if you need to before you send the next one. I have one other request, which would be to send one or two of my v-neck shirts that I left in my box. Some of the photos reminded me of them and I kind of want them again! =P