Happy New Year 2016!

Can you believe it is 2016?! It’s funny because as a missionary, you have your certificate that says when you will finish. You enter into the mission field and you just see this date on there staring back at you. Everyone comes to ask yourself, “could that year really ever come?” I can’t believe that we are in this year. Time sure flies. It feels awful when people ask you how much time you have in the mission. I say I have about 4 months. “Oh yeah, you are practically done.” que miedo me da... [that scares me]

So this week was okay. Honestly it was pretty hard because I feel like our entire area went on vacation. There were nights where we were in centro where there are always a ton of people and instead it was super empty. It was a bit of a challenge. Hermana Luz had her interview for her baptism. She was all set to come to church, but yesterday texted us in the morning and said she was going out of town for a week. NOOO! It was a bummer way to start the morning.

Luckily, the family Segundo Rangel came to church and the bishop blessed the baby! They also brought one other son and his girlfriend to church with them. The two of them live together and just moved back with the family, so we are going to start teaching them this week. Other than that, we are pretty desperate for more investigators. If you aren’t teaching, the days seem to drag on and you seem to be wandering without purpose and without energy. Yesterday, a million people were in the terminal and in taxis so hopefully everyone is coming back.

So the highlight of this past week was definitely New Years.  On the 24th we went to Toluca. We had a testimony meeting in our zone and then we had pizza and watched the Lego Movie. Haha it was actually pretty good. It was funny because after all the missionaries were so excited and were all talking about how great the movie was. I think any movie would be good after not seeing any movies for about two years...We took a picture all wearing scarfs. We then played soccer and volleyball. We also broke piñatas. We then went to stay the night in Toluca with Elder Olvera and Rigby.

I think the best part of the night was at midnight. I had made a goal to finish the Book of Mormon before the New Year. Just as we would all do with our summer homework, I waited to finish until the night before. I was in Ether 10 so I set apart an hour to finish. All the other elders went to bed and I stayed in the kitchen to read. Wow, I love that book. As I was reading the time was getting closer and closer to the New Year. Then right at 12 I finished. Being in Mexico, there were millions of illegal fireworks outside. They all started going off right as I finished reading. It was like everyone was cheering for me! It was great... Anyway, whenever I finish reading the Book of Mormon, I like to follow Moroni’s promise. I said a prayer asking if the things I had learned and if this book were true. The Spirit was so strong and I could just feel a huge hug of warmth enfold me. I am so grateful for the people that brought this book to pass. I know it is the truth. It contains the fullness of the Gospel. After that, I went to bed as everyone was still cheering me on until 6:25 in the morning.

I love you all and hope you have a great year of 2016. Thanks for everything!

-Elder Thomas