Hello everyone!

This week was fairly uneventful save for one rather important development. I got my VISA!! YAY!! I'll be leaving for Brazil on January 6th. To be honest the call came as a complete surprise. I convinced myself that I would be spending at least 3 more transfers in San Antonio. Now that I know I'm leaving I'm excited and sad. I've learned so much here in the TSAM, and I've met some sweet people. I've had awesome companions and I've had some great learning experiences. I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to serve here, even for a brief time. I'll always say that I got to serve two missions one in San Antonio and one in Cuiaba Brazil. To be honest, I'll miss this mission. I feel like I've put a ton of effort into teaching and helping people, and I'll never be able to see the fruits of any of it. But hey! That's how it goes sometimes.

Here in Mission Creek, we're getting a lot done. The key event of the week was probably the ward Christmas party. It was a true Mormon thrown together spectacle. I think the Ward did most of the planning for it this week. But it came together alright. The musical numbers were...amusing? But the food was good, and It was fairly Christ-centered. We had three less-active families there, and one of our investigators, C, came. Speaking of C, she is probably our most promising investigator right now. We've been teaching her a LOT and we have a baptismal date for the 28th with her. Right now we're working with her to help her quit smoking. If she can get that down and out of the way, she will be baptized!! We're teaching a handful of other people as well. One of the neatest people we're teaching is this 16 guy named J G. He basically fell in "like" with this Mormon gal in our ward, and started investigating the church and taking the lessons. He has been taught everything and then some, and he wants to be baptized, but his dad is deployed and doesn't feel comfortable with him making that decision while he is gone. He is probably one of the neatest guys I've ever met. Despite his "youth" he is super spiritual, and loves learning gospel truths. He always presents us with really tough questions, but is accepting of what we say to answer them! If only all people had the kind of desire that he has to follow Christ!

Other than those specifics we are teaching and meeting with a bunch of less-active part-member families, and (hopefully) helping them to progress in the gospel. For lack of anything else to write about I suppose it's worth mentioning a district prank that has been going on for the past week. Elder P (district leader) is a great guy, but he is pretty superstiscious. So, the third companionship in the district (Elder G and Elder Y) made a couple of "ghost" videos of stuff "moving around" by itself in their apartment. The videos were very cleverly done, and they're pretty convincing. When they showed the videos to Elder P he literally screamed like a little girl. Needless to say, that companionship (P and L) are now thoroughly convinced that the other apartment is haunted!

As we approach the Christmas season though, I'll just say a quick word about keeping in mind the true meaning of Christmas. That is- Christ. Although Christmas isn't really his birthday, It provides a great opportunity to reflect on the Savior and all that he's done for us. To many, Christmas is a season of giving, and that's great! I think God loves all the giving and sharing that happens at Christmas time. But with that in mind, reflect on what you can give to show appreciation for the greatest gift that has ever been given, God's son, Jesus Christ, and his life and death for us.

I love you all, and wish you all an early Merry Christmas (because porque nao?)