Dusty's Email -- 12/29/08

Before I get into the letter, I thought that I would let you all know that we had a great call with Dusty on Christmas. It was wonderful to hear his voice. He is happy and healthy, which is a great blessing. The Lord has blessed him greatly over the past six months and has taken great care of him. Even through the trials of a difficult companion and the loss of the twins here at home, he has managed to serve the Lord with honor and love the people of Mexico. As a parent it’s hard to be sad that he isn’t home for the holidays when we can hear the joy in his voice at the life he has chosen.

Dusty told us a little more about the area in which he has been serving. So he is in the Mexico City East mission. Mexico City is like the third largest city in the world. His area that he has been working in is called Nezahualcoyotl, or Neza for short. It is considered a City within a City, and is the fifth largest City in a City in the world. Within the boundaries of his mission live about 13 million people – 7 million of which live in Neza. That’s around the size of Los Angeles!

Anyways, thank you for your loving support of Dusty these past six months. We look forward to more of his ‘adventures’ in 2009.

Love,

John and Judy Howard

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Hey

I only got a short time to write so I’ll do it quick and write more next week. We have a baptism in about 30 minutes and I’m going to be the one baptizing so I have to get all the stuff ready.

Today I bought the pants that I was telling you guys that I needed. It was actually a lot more expensive than I thought. I ended up dropping about 60 bucks. But I have the pants that I need and that’s not a bad price.

Yes, I am being transferred tomorrow. Also tell CJ that he`s not the only one that has a new cell phone, I’ll be carrying one also because I`m going to be a district leader. My companion is also being transferred, so they are taking both of us out of this area. I`m real excited to see where I’ll be put. I’ll let you guys know more in the next letter.

Mom, I’m fine at night and don’t really need a blanket but if you want you can send one.

Yes, all the missionaries that I’ve talked to did get to talk to their families on Christmas. Which is good. For Christmas dinner we had this thing called pazaoli. It’s like a soup with all these noodles and chicken and lettuce and cream and other stuff. It was really good.

I was happy to hear from you all and also Jason. I’m glad that all has been well and I hope that all stays that way.

Mom, I understand your comments on the struggles with my companions preparing me for marriage, but I’m pretty sure that my wife isn’t going to insult me and disrespect me every day. But I see what you’re saying and I have learned a lot from this Elder.

Things are going well, especially now. It’s a bit tough to say bye to everyone here but it’s going be like that in every area.
I was happy to read about how Christmas was for CJ as an only child with you people. It was a bit weird that he was so shy on the phone but you’re probably right, it`ll go back to normal when we see each other. I hope. Maybe it`ll be different in May for the Mother’s day call .....who knows. We`ll see.

Thanks for everything and I love you guys. I`ll talk to you in a week.

Love

Elder Howard