Happy New Year!!

I can't believe it's 2014.

 

2014 has already introduced itself as a crazy, crazy year.

 

The bad crazy happened on New Years Day.

 

New Years Day was a non-proselyting day, and so President authorized tri-zone activities across the mission. We were grouped with Highland Hills and Bonanza Zones, and after talking with the other zone leaders there, we decided basketball wouldn't be fun for around 60 people, so we decided on capture-the-flag in the desert for our activity (if you follow Simmons all the way north on Google Maps, you'll find the desert we played in). To make a long story short, we were running around and one of our visa waiters (missionary waiting for his visa so he can go to Brazil) tried to jump a little slot canyon and didn't make it. I was right there with him, and he broke his right ankle. Me and one other missionary had to carry him out of the slot canyon (which took a good amount of time), we found Elder Tunney and we headed for the hospital. It was a pretty intense couple of hours. Turns out it was broken in three places, but luckily they were able to get him into surgery in a matter of hours. After his surgery, Tunney and I had to organize six-hour shifts for missionaries to stay at the hospital and watch him; I was there from 12am to 6am, then had to be at a meeting from 9am to 2pm the next day. It was crazy. However, he's out of the hospital and recuperating right now; might have to go home, not sure.  

 

The good crazy happened on Sunday at church.

The next two Saturdays we have three baptisms scheduled! This upcoming Saturday is Vilma and Andrew (her ten year old son) Carrillo's baptism; they've just moved here from California and they're two pretty amazing people (See: December 23rd letter). January18th is Serre Splond, an amazing 19 year old mother who feels the spirit strongly and is preparing for her baptism by video-blogging her feelings (See: December 2nd/9th letter; her YouTube channel can be found at http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb300mau-xbTWK-0k8DbYPg). Both Serre and Vilma got up in church and bore their testimonies during sacrament - it was amazing. They both bore powerful testimony of the Savior and of the truth of His church. It was such an amazing meeting, I don't think I'll ever forget it.

 

Anyways, 2014 is all kinds of crazy. Here's to the rest of it being crazier.

 

Love,

 

Jesse

 

At Savannah Kotte's baptism