Happy New Year!

Hey y’all!!

Happy New Year!!! Man, I was doing the classic look back on the year and pondering, as I'm sure we all do around this time, and I realized that the majority of the year was on my mission. Even when it wasn't, it was just me doing nothing and waiting to leave....crazy!! Well, it's been a pretty awesome year, because it's awesome to be a missionary. I hope everyone had a happy Christmas and New Year's! I feel like there is a lot to fill you guys in on since I didn't send an email last week, I'll try and keep it to the big stuff.

So our bishop’s daughter was baptized the Saturday before Christmas, and that was super awesome! The Spirit was there so strongly; I loved it so much. We also had 2 of our investigators come out to that which was super awesome. One of them even brought a friend, which was super cool. They all loved it and really talked about how they could feel the Spirit there.

Christmas Skype from all over the world!

Christmas itself was super cool. We spent the morning with some other missionaries. On the way there, Elder Johnson and I passed out cookies to all of the people on the trains, which was a lot of fun..... Not gonna lie, I was a little bit surprised about how many people reject a cookie. I mean, I'm not that bad of a cook....am I??? Ha, but that was pretty fun. After that, we went and had a lunch appointment with one of the investigators who came to the baptism and with her family. That was a lot of fun. They are a super awesome family. I'm really excited for them. Afterwards, we all read together about the birth of Christ. Later that day, we did Skype calls. It was super fun to see everyone and talk to the fam again.

During the week, we were pretty busy. I had to do 2 different intercambios back to back, so busy for sure. It was all super great though. I was with Elder Hamson and with Elder Merrill, both of which are doing super great. 

New Year's Tradition-12 chimes, 12 grapes

On New Year’s, we didn't do very much; we had to do weekly planning so we stayed in piso most of the day. We were both super tired, so we were a little lame and went to bed early. We did set an alarm and woke up at 11:55 to welcome in the new year, so that was fun. They have a tradition here to eat 12 grapes for every chime of the clock. Someone explained it to me in depth once, but I forgot the majority of it. It’s supposed to be super symbolic. So we just stuffed 12 grapes in our mouth all at once and called it a night.

This week we have been studying faith. A big focus we have had has been on not just studying faith but really working on increasing it. A reoccurring theme that we have heard a lot has been that faith is an action. True faith leads us to change and gives us a desire to become better. After everything we have studied, I really feel like I need to improve my faith so much. I think that that is a really awesome part of the experience that we have on this earth. God shows us what we can improve but then he leaves it to us to take the initiative and act. My invitation for everyone this week is to try and find what it is that you can improve; then with the help of God, go act and make it better. I love you all! Have a great week!

- Elder Bassett