Happy New Year 2013

Finally we got to do an activity. We went up the teleferico (aerial tramway)  to the volcán pichincha. We did it in my first zone like more than a year ago. It was so refreshing for me to get out and see the natural world.

Quito is very different in their celebrations of the new year. Everyone makes a doll out of real clothes filled with newspaper and they call it "the old year" and at midnight they kick it and beat it up and burn it. It's to get rid of all the bad that happened to them during the year. There are guys that dress as the "widows" of the "old year" and stop the cars in the street and dance skankily on the hood of the car and won't let them keep driving until they give them money. I got a funny picture of 2 of those guys.

Not a whole lot to say, just that the 2 baptisms we had planned were flops. The little girl Alison told us she was 9, which would count as a baptism for the mission, but she actually was only 8, so we did the baptism anyway, but it didn't count for us. The other baptism, Juliana, her little boy had an asthma attack in the morning and they were in the hospital all day, so, that'll be next week.

Well, Happy New Year! I wanted to tell you my goals for the new year, but I am going to be working on those tonight.

Love you all,
Elder Blackwelder