Monday, December 30, 2013

Christmas was Great!


Dear family!
Ok, Christmas was so fun! Your gifts were perfect! Yes my suit is great! It is super slick! it fits just about perfect and is just right because it gives me a little room to grow, its awesome!
 Well what can I say this week, honestly its like there is always so much, I can't even remember what is the most important to tell you!
A couple things I want to get out of the way first and foremost! The gifts were amazing. You managed to box up Christmas and family memories and ship that joy right here to Bayonne. Its incredible, seriously, that takes talent. I could tell the care and effort you put into it, it was palpable. You made my day, but not by the gifts; which were all exactly right by the way. No, you made my day because each one of you included tid-bits of fun little things that meant so much to me. Specifically the letters, ties, cologne, suit, and real-GOLD~thing!
Ty, your letter was great, I always open your letters first! You wanna know why? Well because they are hilarious! but more importantly they help me feel connected to you. You really do write well and I love to hear the detail you include about your week, the things that are going on with you, and the sort. You are awesome little brother! Keep up the good work!
Dad your emails do not bore me in the slightest! Are you kidding me! I felt like I was on the beach again! Please keep writting about the small things! Thanks for your insights and like I said before help those missionaries in your ward! You can be such a blessing to them!
Mom, that is affirmative. I will check in. =) Yes, I have been exercising and it has been sufficient. I have set goals and made plans and have seen results, and plus, its just fun to me to work out in the mornings and feel like I am being productive that early. I feel like my whole day is better when I get my exercise in, and its the same with scripture study! The whole day depends on it, so I have learned not to neglect either!
Ok so this week was great! We received tons of help from Heavenly Father and the taste of success has been the perfect incentive to improve and to keep doing what we are doing. Sometimes starting is the hardest part. This week we got 7 new investigators! Sweet right! Well it is for us anyway! So we have been trying to be really thankful for that.
Ok the most special parts of this week for me, the success was amazing, and I am seeing improvement!
Guess what I did? I have learned how to play "He is Risen" on piano! I just have decided every time the opportunity appears, and it is OK to do according t missionary rules, I play that one hymn and I pretty much have it down! Now I am just working on perfecting it and finishing up the last part. I have never learned a hymn before, and with a piano in the house for 18 years!, so that in and of itself proves to me how this mission is helping me. I have just really learned to focus on what I want to see happen and, God willing, it often does! I have set spiritual, language, and physical goals in that order of importance for the upcoming year and I have been rewarded with the contentment in realizing, "hey this is where I am at, and this is where I can be, and if you are willing to do what you have said here on this paper Elder Showalter this is how you are gonna get there!" It has made me so much less worried about why am not this and that, and made me realize what and how I can become something better, the said "this and that". So that has been fun really fun. I've learned life is like dinner, you have to eat all types of food. In high school life was sports, but now I see you can't pull that off, and I didn't! Hahahah So now I just want to apologize to Mom for being a stinker about homework and school. =) Yes, after all these years. It is cool to do well in everything you do, and that included school! So I promise to stop being lame and do well in missionary work, physical fitness, school, or whatever! If I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna try to do it well! 
This week the names that are very important are, Brother Deangelo and Sister Caroline, The Dominguez family, Medhat, and the Rodriguezes. I have felt the power of your prayers this week! And I know this week I will feel them too!
Love you sweet family,


 Elder Showalter
 P.s.
 And it was also awesome that I received a box of sugar cookies from sister Marquez! Tell her I love her! Just to know she cares enough to send me something is such a great thing to know! That means she is thinking about me! AWE =)