Merry Christmas!

Happy Birthday Dad! What a week for emails! Thank you Hadley, Stephanie, Vickie, Doug, Grandma, Sarah, Becky, Marty, Michelle, Dotty, Isaac, Clint and Amanda, Hawkins, and Elder Jackson Brown, who just returned home from his mission; I am in Barrio 5 - Sol. If I forgot anyone, thank- you too! I got a package from Brian. We listened to the EFY cd’s yesterday at medio dia. I also got packages from both Grandmas and the 2 from Mom, Dad and Evan as well. The box with the Thai books came in time that I was able to write in them at Christmas Zone Conference and give them to Elder Haynie to take to Tak and Rei. Speaking of which, Tak and Rei sent a Christmas card with Elders Haynie and Parry for me, just a simple Christmas card but it made my world. Elder Sewell loved the BYU hoody. Thanks so, so, so much for sending the packages for me.
I was made a Zone Leader again with this transfer, so I will probably stay here for 2 or 3 more transfers and then I will go somewhere else for my last few transfers.
Christmas Conference was amazing. There were two parts - a skit part at the beginning where we made impromptu skits, and also there was guessing about missionaries in the down time. We sang Christmas songs in Spanish as well, and then we ate a delicious honey baked ham, smothered in Dijon mustard horseradish sauce (kind of a strong flavor), and then pineapple on that. We also had baked potatoes with all the fixins, croissants and a spinach salad. For dessert we had Roscon, the traditional Spanish Reyes Day (6th of January) celebration cake. It is a circle like a donut with whipped cream in the middle. It was great. We also had a spiritual half where there was a choir presentation with a ton of songs and solos and quartets and a ton of talented missionaries sang. Then President and Hermana Farnsworth both spoke and we received our family letters. I also got one from President Lattin. Then President Farnsworth handwrote one to everyone just like last year. It’s weird to be on Christmas number 2 in Spain. It doesn’t feel a lick like Christmas, except when we were caroling in Sol and at Christmas Conference.
Mom, I would love it if you took some pictures at Elise’s wedding for me of the people there.
Have fun snowmobiling and snowboarding and all of that cold stuff. I love you all a ton, and the people here love us as well. Don’t worry mom. We have a dinner appointment tonight and one tomorrow, and both days are full of citas. If all we did was walk around and contact on Christmas, I would be just fine, though. I hope I don’t get my camera stolen again, that was way bad last Christmas, and then we also had emergency transfers on Christmas morning last year.
This week at church there was about 120 people there, which is awesome. There are people from the USA, South America and Spain. It’s kind of crazy, especially because 2 wards meet in the same building. It is a bajo, or a basement to a big apartment building, but on the ground floor. Here in Spain, they leave all of the ground floors of buildings for stores, offices, bars, restaurants, businesses, and Mormon capillas... that’s convenient.
As far as investigators goes, we are teaching some people that Elder Ott taught. A man who we thought was a member until we found out he isn’t a member. We found him in the old investigators section of the area book, with Elder Ott’s name on the back as the last one to teach him. So that’s weird. He is coming to church and we have a baptismal date with him even though he was baptized 17 years ago with no records of it. So we have to recreate the baptism. The problem is that he smokes a lot, and has lots of problems we are trying to help him overcome. His name is Manuel Robledo. We also have a new investigator that we taught for the first time last night. Her name is Dora and we also taught her brother-in-law Quirico. They are both from the Dominican Republic. We are hoping to teach Dora’s sister and Quirico’s wife in the next lesson. They are awesome and were so intent, and feeling the spirit as we were able to tell them that amazing message of the restoration of the Gospel. We also have another former Elder Ott investigator, Ascensio. He had a baptismal date with Elder Ott and disappeared the last week, and then another after he was found and taught again, until in the last week he called his wife in South America and she told him not to get baptized. So we are trying to figure that out so we can baptize him. Work is going well. Have a Merry Christmas!
Remember the reason for the season!
I love you all tons.

Love, Elder Miller