I would like to start off by telling you all how much I love each and every one of you. Mom and Dad, you are the best. Look at this family that you have created!!! Three young men that have served (or is serving) missions, three sealed as husband and wife in the temple, and every other one a worthy temple recommend holder. We have so many unbelievable blessings in our lives. You have to be proud and so grateful for this family. And three more to be added to the fold in just a few short months. How amazing is all of that?!!!!!

Thank you again for the letters and gifts family and friends. I just opened the package from the Reid Family. Holy nice. What did I do to deserve this love? They sent some yummy chocolates and sour patch but the best part was they sent these super awesome cards with pictures of Christ on them along with other cards with a picture of their family and their testimony of the Book of Mormon. So awesome of them to do that. It will be way useful to use as we give out some more copies of the Book of Mormon. Please send them a million thank you`s. They are very, extremely thoughtful to do such a thing. I also got the Christmas cards from the Garrabrant`s family, Terry Francom, Erika and Andrew, and the Wadley`s. Thank you so much for thinking of me!!! It was way nice that I got the letters a little late because that means that Christmas is a couple weeks longer. THANK YOU SO MUCH EVERYONE. It has been an awesome Christmas season and I feel the love of all of you very strong here in Ecuador.

So as I have said before the work here can be a little difficult. I am lead to think that our area is one of the smallest of all the areas in the world. We have had some difficulties with finding people who want to progress. We actually had a new record this week: my companion, Elder Castañeda, did not even finish saying "Buenas Tardes" before the man shook his head and said "no molesten" which means "don`t bother me." That day was one of the roughest day of my mission as we saw so many reject without even listening to the smallest portion of such a beautiful message. Oh well, we laughed it off as we walked away to knock some more doors. And the knocking has payed off. We found a really awesome 20 year old girl named Paola. She is such an awesome listener and we are already really good friends in the short time we have shared with her. She has tons of potential to progress really fast.

This week we really took the Area Book apart as we searched for some old investigators that we could recontact. That also paid off a ton. We went out to find Roxana and she came out and was way super friendly and we sat down Saturday night and talked about the restoration. She listens very well and we made a really strong relationship in just a short hour and she accepted the invitation to go to church super easily--which isn`t always a good thing. Often people say they will go to church just so you won`t bother them anymore. However, she completely followed through with her word. She lives really far away from the church but she woke up, got ready, and was one of the few that showed up on time. Wow she is awesome.

Our little branch here in Las Palmeras grew a ton this past Sunday. We saw a lot more Church Attendance than normal and fast and testimony meeting was amazing. I love the members here!!

So those are my stories for the week...

Wow so Kim is going to China!!! Holy crazy. I can`t imagine what she is thinking right now, but I know she is way happy!!! I´m glad she got to see Steph and all. Wow the Hintze`s are amazing. Doug and Paige made a snowman!!! How awesome!!! Don`t let the tradition die!! Well sounds like life is really moving on back in Utah. Tyler working with Kim Reid--what a great opportunity. Kyle and Paige back to Provo. Mom back in school. Dad with all of his new responsibilities. AND three babies coming soon. What a crazy family we have right now.

You guys are all awesome and I love you bunches.

p.s. tell Drewbie to send me an e-mail soon. I really want to hear from how everything is going for him.

ELDER PRESTON MICHAEL ANDERSON