The Return to the $outh $ide

Family & Friends,

Well, what a crazy week it has been! Lots of change, adjustments, and responsibilities to tackle but they have all been great. It was a real bummer to say bye to Waterloo so quickly but planning on taking a couple trips back up there, hopefully for some baptisms coming up! It should work out for the best so I'm super excited for that. I stopped by Samuel on my way out of town and I said it'll only be a quick goodbye because I'll see him at the temple soon and he said "I'm down. When's that going to be?" So hopefully soon we'll be taking a trip down to Nauvoo!

This past week has been very long. Since Tuesday morning, it has been basically nonstop planning and thinking about the transfer ahead of us. Lots of variables that go into it. The second we felt that we had it all perfect, something would come to mind and would have to change it all. That happened at least 5 times. It was so exhausting so I have been sleeping very well to say the least.

Enough with the boring stuff. Even with very limited time to actually get out and work in our area, we had some awesome lessons. One of the lessons was with a Mom/Daughter duo named Kelly and Emily who is 16. Its crazy how these two came in contact with the missionaries. One day Emily stumbled over an article about the Word of Wisdom, looked more into the church, and right then decided to order herself her very own Quad. She then referred herself and her mom to the missionaries. They've been just the most dynamic duo ever since. We were planning on "teaching" them about the 10 Commandments, the Law of Chastity, and the Law of Tithing but Emily basically knew about them already. All we had to do was just run through them and help Kelly understand it all. Solid. Emily will be getting baptized on the 22nd and Kelly a little later! Fast forward to Saturday night at the Ward Christmas party and Emily invited her best friend and dad to come and check it all out and now they are thinking about learning some more. Bucketssssssss. Kelly opened up to us at church and is really looking forward to her own baptism as well!

Another awesome lesson we had was with our boys Chase and Chance. They are both 9, twins, and sons of a recent convert in the ward. They've been going back and forth about coming to church, just how typical 9 year olds would be like, but we finally got them sat down and got them excited for everything. We told them that their dad could baptize them and that got them really excited. It was a fun experience being there and teaching these 2 the restoration in super simple terms. Simple but powerful. The Spirit was there and you could see their eyes being opened up and light being poured in. Doesn't matter how you do it, but when you're talking about the truthfulness of the Restored Gospel, the Spirit will go to work!

It's crazy to be back in Des Moines, in basically the very same area where I started my mission (I just wish I was still going to be in la rama). It's going to be super fun though and I'm excited to be back in the Big City!! 

Love you all and have the best Christmas!! 

#IlluminaelMundo

EC

Mi corazón

Fab 4 of Waterloo

Greatest squad in IA

Loo Crew

s/o IA...this never gets old