Buenas from Belen! (Hi from Bethlehem!)

Buenas Familia!

First off to answer questions from Mom...

1. Yes I am getting along really well with Elder Baxin, he is finishing the mission right now so we really want him to finish off strong!
2. He does speak a little bit of english, but he is just a little nervous and timid about speaking with english speakers, but with time he will gain confidence.
3. My area is called Ojo de Agua, its in a city called San Rafael. It is huge! It is in the middle of nowhere though, and it is all flat-lands and country. Heredia, the zone I am in though is really cool! It is huge! And it is really rich haha, the temple is in our zone, and it is like a 15 minute bus ride from our area, so I love it!
4. The new apartment is atleast bigger than the cave in Tres Rios, but it is smelly and HOT! San Rafael is ridiculously hot and sunny.
5. In our zone there are 10 elders and 12 sisters haha, President just keeps sending me to zones of sisters!!!
6. The members are super great in our area, and they have been giving us a ton of references!!! So work is going good.

Okay, well this week was hard!!! Monday we had the mission Christmas party, and that was awesome. We went Christmas caroling at an senior citizen facility, and it was an awesome experience to be there with these great people, and hear their stories, and basically just listen to them. I love them. After that, I woke up in the night throwing up, and that kept on going for the next 2 days. I got food poisoning or something, but I am all better now! This week was a little struggle. We are opening up a new area here in Ojo de Agua, and being zone leaders so it is a little difficult trying to get to know members/ guide a zone/ get to know misisonaries/ deal with their problems/ have success when you are completely starting from scratch. Haha, but we'll figure it out haha. We have been really blessed with miracles here though. We just passed by the house of a member family the other day, and we found out that 2 of their kids haven't been batpized, so we will be blessed with two baptisms the first week of January.

Okay time for a funny story. So sunday, I was on divisions with Elder Sharp (just starting the mission, and he doesn't know any spanish at all.) So we were walking down the street, and this really old, and really white guy calls us from his door. SO we walked over to see what was up, and he was like, ''Elders, come in my house....'' So we walked in and turns out he has this ''plant'' that magically cures cancer, and he was trying to get us to take it, or tell people about it, I really didnt understand. (He was old, and mumbled a lot) So he was talking to us for like an hour about this magic plant, and finally we asked if he wanted to hear us and he quickly said, ''Hasta luego!!!'' and he quicked us out of his house! It was awesome, becuase we found the cure for cancer! And it's in this old guy's house in Costa Rica!

Okay, so about skype, uhm we are going to skype from the bishops house Christmas Night at 6 p.m Costa Rican time! I hope that is alright!!! Let me know if it doesn't work for you guys! I am super stoked to skype, and you will see how skinny I am now! (I am super skinny now, I have lost all my muscle, and it has turned into fat or left haha). Rice and Beans! Okay but yeah, just let me know if you need anything!

I love all of you, take care! I know this is the true church, and that the Atonement of Jesus Christ is real!

Pura Vida,
Elder Taylor

P.S. What is Eric's email? Because I have emailed him but I haven't gotten an answer from him...

Photos...

Here are some photos. Today for p-day we went bowling. 

In the other one we are eating Tamales, that is what they eat here for Christmas. Party Time!

These are all pictures that we took after the Christmas activity. We were in Central Park, and it was cool to see it all lit up with Christmas lights.