Howard, Keaton

Olá everyone! Hope you all had an amazing Christmas! Ours was pretty good this year. Although it was different and not as exciting as the typical Christmas at home, it will be one that I'll remember for a long time. On Thursday, we had a big Christmas conference with a few zones. We heard an amazing message about Christ and His story. And then we had a huge white elephant party, and I almost walked away with some KFC chicken cologne, but it got stolen at the last second, and I ended up with a nose hair trimmer. It was a tragedy.  We came down to Vila Real and stayed with the elders there. We went to lunch with the branch president and his family at their home on the 23rd. He set up a fun game for us to play, and he really outdid himself. We each got new ties, he had each of our families make videos for us to watch, and some of us ended up with pies in our faces. It was awesome. And the food was amazing too.  We also decided we wanted to make some good food together on Christma...

Olá! Sorry for not writing last week. Totally spaced on that one. We had transfers last week, but not too much happened. We received another set of elders in our district for a total of 8 now. It's gonna be a party. As for us in Chaves, not much changed. We both stayed here for this next one. So next transfer, one of us will be out. We'll see.  Otherwise, everything is going great! It's been slow here the past two weeks, but we have been able to get in a few really good lessons with some friends. We also have a less active member and his son coming every week to church, which is awesome! His son just turned 8, and he wants to get baptized. So we're looking forward to that!  The weather here is getting really cold. Today, for the first time on my mission, the temperature dropped to below freezing. It has been hovering just above freezing the whole day, and we are all super cold here. It's not super bad if we're walking around a ton or we have a heater in our room...

Olá everyone!  Hope you all are doing well. I don't have a ton of time to write, so it will be a short one.  We had the opportunity to have a few lessons this past week. On Saturday, we got to meet with one of our friends, Peterson, at a pastry shop. He was super nice, and we had a good lesson with him. He's a pastor for one of the other churches in Chaves, so it was interesting to talk to him about a ton of different things. We marked to meet with him again this next Saturday. We'll see how it goes. I also got to go on an exchange with Elder Pollock, which was really fun. It was good to be with someone from home for a bit. It was super fun We had our first member meal on Sunday. It was great. The Vila Real branch president took us to his house and had lunch with his family.  Hope you all have a great week! Elder  Howard Pictures  - Exchange - Christmas lights here in Chaves - Dinner with branch president