New town, New place

Nick asked if I would thank those who sent him Christmas cards and the cards from the Primary kids.  I appreciate all the love and support for my kids also.   He finally got some of his mail when he was transferred.  He is in a tiny town right on the border of his mission.  I googled it and it looks like a pretty little place.  He didn't say much about his companion.  He did say their are 4 elders in the town.  He spent 5 hours today, doing service for a lady.  They cut down a tree with a machete.  I'm sure Nick was in heaven.  


So this week, 

Turns out I'm  not still in Queretaro.(he means the city of,  there is a Queretaro state)I'm in San Juan del Rio, this little town in the middle of nowhere, where I'm the only American. 

Its weird though. I feel like everything is different here, the people especially, the people in the street actually say hi to us... 

But there are 32 people that we're teaching right now, well attempting to teach, we're literally always busy here. 

The ward is way nice though and they help us out a ton. This week was stake conference though, so I didn't get to meet a lot of the people. 

I really don't know what to say about this week though. I feel like I've never worked harder in my life than I have here in this one week, which is not a bad thing. 

I was thinking a lot lately about something my mission President said in a talk. He was talking about his story which I don't have all the time to write out but, the point was that it was a miracle that he ever returned to the church. 

And that made me think of the sheep story about the 99 and the 1 and how the shepherd leaves everything to go search for one lost lamb. 

And then I thought about my story, how I've been a member my entire life in this church.  For a good long time it meant absolutely nothing to me, it was just one of those things that I just did but didn't think a lot about. 

I screwed up a lot of things in my life too, just searching for a sense of happiness or belonging.. Honestly I always ended up just being depressed.

But then one day something changed and to this day I'm still not really sure what. But, there was a moment when I decided to change everything. Everything. 

Now I'm here. In Mexico. Trying to help people find that same happiness.  Trying to help them find... well something.  More than anything hope, hope that things can and will get better. 

Honestly I have no idea how I got here.... how I got to this point in my life. 

I know God knows us personally and he won't leave us abandoned in this world. 

Elder Arvanitas