Putting on the "Sonrisa"... and Christmas Zone Conference

Buenas,

Man, pretty hard week this past week. Some setbacks with the work, and Elder Chacin and I got sick so we both have bad headaches, coughs, sore throats, runny noses, so that hasn’t been too fun, either. But, it's all good though. It’s been a good learning experience to just put on the sonrisa (“smile”) sometimes even when the going gets tough. Congrats on Andrew getting into those schools!! (I'd probably be a little upset if he didn’t get into them because he should get accepted to all of them, but that's so good!). Oh yea and I got all of the Christmas boxes so those were fun to open (“ya los abri...”) they were so cool! I loved everyone's note to me that was probably my favorite part! And the Texas Rangers calendar, that thing is sick!!!!!! Dad’s getting his colon checked, what is he 50? :) That's cool about everyone being home for the break tell everyone that I say hi! Yea I'm having an interview with Presidente next month so that's when I’ll talk to him about my form for school. So, we are going to be Skyping at the Fuentes’ house and it will be around 4-ish I think, but have the computer ready from like 3 to 5-ish just in case because I think we’re having dinner as well, not sure which is first. Also, we watched the slideshow with everyone’s little kid pictures at zone conference and it was awesome! (See Ethan's below.) Everyone laughed super hard when mine came up! It was super cool though, thanks for doing that! All is going well though I can't complain – this is the best time of the year to be a missionary. I love it! I’ll see y’all on Thursday!

Feliz Navidad,
Elder Christiansen

Elder Christiansen in the red striped tie, to his left is current companion
Elder Chacin, and to his right is former companion, Elder Brian!

Ethan, age 8


Sister Maluenda put together a slide show for each Zone Conference Christmas party that featured each missionary as a child, then a picture of them with their families. The missionaries had a special Christmas lunch where they received gifts and she took many pictures and shared with the parents and families -- wonderful!