January 4th, 2016

Friends and Fam,

I know I start every email with LOL but that is literally my life. If you could see the things I do and see daily you would understand. Hahaha.

Oh New Years. Oh Peruvians. Oh beer. hahahahaha.

Peruvians actually have a tradition for New Years that I think is super cool.  Besides non stop drinking from Jan 1-Jan 3 (which I don't mind because the drunk Peruvians are SO nice)  there is also a Peruvian tradition to make this huge life-sized dummy called a Muneco and fill it up with everything you want to forget/change from the past year.  At midnight on New Years you then blow the Muneco up in the middle of the street. Needless to say I did not sleep New Years Eve because everyone and their dog was having a party with very loud music and were blowing things up.  They then played the entire ABBA album on repeat for two days straight. Hahahaha.  Peruvians are the funniest people and know how to throw a party.

I also realized that I am literally becoming my parents. Hahaha. I dont know if it happened while I was liberally scooping 17 knife-fulls of peanut butter on my toast (Wade Meier) or eating a raw tomato like it was an apple (Dayna Meier) but I have become very aware that I am gradually becoming Charles and Dayna J. Luckily they are two of my favorite people so I don't mind. Hahaha

All in all this week was fantastic.  We had 22 people come to church this week. The highest it has ever been since I've been here.  Granted half of them came late and missed sacrament but I literally dont even care. We also had no bread so we had to use crackers for the sacrament. Sacrament was a little crunchy but still spiritual! Hahaha.

I am so excited for 2016!  It is crazy to me that this year will be completely dedicated to the Lord as a missionary. On Sunday we had a great lesson about the Nature of God.  God loves you.  He really really does.  Sometimes it's easy to forget. Especially when things get hard.  Sometimes God can't always answer your prayers right away because he loves you enough to let you learn and grow. Sometimes He can't give you everything you want right now, because he wants you to have something better later on.  Something I've realized is that you can always pray to God and ask Him if He loves you and you will always get an answer right away.  God's love for you is always there but you have to be the one to look for it. Its our job to get to know God.

Anyway, I love you all and Happy New year! 

Love,

Elder Meier