Dec 30th Letter

Hey, feliz navidad de nuevo y todo! Les extraño mucho (I miss you lots). It was nice to talk with you all over skype and yes we were very grateful to the members who let us use their equipment. It was a lot better than trying to use an internet center (of which almost none were open anyway). 

So I suppose I can tell you about my health right away. We are fine ish now! We preach normal and everything again and it is great to preach. Makes me feel so much better. I have a new spanish word for you guys to learn, estreñimiento. It means constipation haha. We are having that problem a little as of right now. Well, at least for us. We are used to frequent bathroom usage, and it has really slowed down. Oh well. So we do have a parasite of some kind that they said wasnt overly dangerous and apparently ¨numerous bacteria¨. So the assistants said we better feed that zoo in our stomachs hahaaha. Anyway, that was the test. We are now on this natural treatment with garlic and carrot mix. We took it the day before at night and WOOOOOOWWW it BURRRNNNSSS!!! So we ground up the two things and strained the juice and drank it. It actually tastes fine (maybe even good) but wow when it enters your system... we had to sit down for a good 10 minutes trying not to fall over. Wow it is a killer. So we took it and we have to take it again today and maybe in another two days, and with the last treatment we take a laxative to clean the system. Supposedly that should take care of everything. I believe it now with the way that drink made us feel. 

I am glad you guys had a great christmas and everything. We are enjoying ours now a lot more. We are even having baptisms this week of some investigators Elder Diaz was teaching. Wow they are so ready. The one woman has legitametly investigated the church. She is almost done the book of mormon, is reading doctrine and covenants and has a bunch of awesome scriptures memorized. Wow. A REAL investigator. And her faith is crazy strong. It is impossible not to feel. We hope it pushes her lazy brother into action haha. There are three of them that live in the house, all investigating. The one sister and her cousin are getting baptized this week, while the brother is still kind of lagging. The two leech of of the one sister. She brings home all the bacon. And WOW the live in a nice house. With really cool stuff and its really nicely painted I think its nicer than ours. Of just the one sister´s pay. She has a military job or something that pays super well, so they are all set. 

Anyway, it is super cool to teach with Elder Diaz. His investigators understand things so well, and his teaching is really in depth with a goal of understanding, spiritually and in terms of their knowledge. We have really figured out the importance of telling people about the importance of dispensacions of the Gospel. That they need to understand the importance of prophets and how everything really works. It is super awesome to actually be doing a really good job of teaching. Now we just need to shorten the lessons with people haha. People have too much time on their hands around here (even though they tell us they dont. LIES). 

I still cant imagine snow very well anymore, espeically with the weather heating back up again (I guess our time of ¨cold¨is over). Dique. Sorry you dont have a spanish translator yet in Mexico. But I would probably just offend them anyway with al my Dominican. I probably speak Dominican and not Spanish. Bad me.

I still need to write a birthday thing to Tasha, SORRRYY. Being sick really stinks. We finally cleaned the super nasty flithy house today. And it looks so good. We actually filled bags of just all the garbage that was sitting on the floor.

Dont worry about me not getting enough nutrition. I get too much. I am getting so fat right now. I suppose sometime I will send a picture of my fat self. We have this funny investigator (he works out and stuff so he is not very fat) who always calls me ¨gordito¨now. Means little fat guy. Haha. I laugh and call him gordo, and always poke his belly. People have taken a liking to hitting my belly. Maybe because its so fat now. Never thought I would see the day. Better start working out again. Oh well its fun to hang out with all the investigators. I told the guy who works out he has to read the book of mormon while he is lifting weights. Lift spiritually in one hand and the weight in the other. I am pretty sure the book is too heavy for him anyway hes so gordo. Haha. 

I finally finished the book of mormon in spanish. It was super cool to do, and I feel like I learned more from it in spanish than in english. Really learned that our purpose in life is really just to become more like God. That we are to do His work. And if we arent really willing to do it here, well then, we dont have to do it in heaven either. We dont have to be exalted if we dont want to. But if we really want to have exaltation, we have to become more like God, get to know who he is, all that he knows. It is really something special to do, and something I am really learning in the mission. Cool things to learn from the book of mormon and such. I get to start again now (yeah!). I really like reading in spanish and speaking it. Way more fun than english. Hopefully I havent lost too much of my spanish from being sick for so long. I have noticed Im not as comfortable speaking as I was before dengue. Probably a blessing since I was teaching alone. Anyway, life continues.

Thanks for all the things you sent. The japanese things make me really happy. But most especially is the love of my family that I carry with me. I always feel so proud to be able to share my family with people here. I keep a picture taped in my book of mormon to show people. They always comment on how beautiful my family is. And how white dad is. And how Christina is definitely 25 and Tasha 17. And that mom is definitely chinese haha. But they really notice how happy everyone is, and I know just like the picture our happiness is sealed. It is a great feeling. I hope sometime soon I can help people to have the same joy I see in our family, in my dear friend Javier and lately my friends I read about in the scriptures. Dont worry about and such I am doing fine, and we will be just alright. Dont worry about the parasites and bacteria, this stuff we are doing literally kills everything in the digestive system, hence we dont just drink a ton of it all ot once haha. But as the scriptures say, ¨Sed limpios los que llevan los vasos del Senor¨ ¨Be ye clean who bear the vessels of the Lord¨. So we better get rid of those bacteria I guess haha. Thanks for being my family!

Siempre mi amor,

Elder Sullivan

PS I have a new favourite hymn. In spanish its called Siembra Gozo. In english I believe it is called Scatter Sunshine. It may be kind of a goofy hymn and all, but you guys should make the wards all sing it sometime. Its kind of funny and stuff. Merry Christmas, and when I can send pictures I will send Tasha a birthday thing with a picture of my fatness for her to put up on a wall or something.

PSS So I wanted to paint this picture of Elder Diaz and I being sick at the same time. We were trying to study this one time. And then I was all like ¨Loco, I think I am going to die. I need to go to the bathroom¨. ¨Oh man, I do too¨. And from then on, we just lay in bed dying side by side hahahahahaah. Sometimes we would lean over to each other and say ¨Hey, como esta?¨¨Bien, yo creo.¨Yeah. It was a good christmas. We are super close companions now though!