My beloved extended family...

Mi querida familia,
Well this week has been interesting here in Mexico, and it sounds pretty interesting back at home too. I hope you are all doing well, especially since almost the entire family is under the same roof again! Woooo! It sounds pretty great to me, wish I could be there. Truthfully, families here can be very close, and it reminds me of us sometimes (since we're a perfect family and all, ya know?). Sometimes, their home is just 2 rooms: a living room/kitchen/dining room, and the bedroom, where everyone sleeps together. For example, sometimes there are 2 beds and a hammock for a family of 5-6 people. Lots of the kids are very used to sleeping in the same beds and sharing everything. Its awesome, and humbles me alot. Especially since I've always had my own bed, and for a lot of time my own room too. How blessed I have been, and am still.
Keep up the good work at home, hope that garage cleans itself up this time, seems like we need to clean it every year or so. I'll be there for the next one I hope, if it doesn't come too soon haha. Caitlynn, hope everything's turning out just as you've wished for your wedding plans. Don't go too crazy though, once you go through the temple I'm sure your afterparty won't even come close to compare. Keep up the good work, and prepare yourself for the experience of a lifetime haha. And hello to Seth! My almost new brother-in-law! I'm so grateful for such loving sisters who find such great brothers for me. That should be the goal for Haley and Reagan now too, just look for a brother for me, and hopefully he'll be a good husband too, hahaha.
Mom, I love you so much. Dad too! You are the best parents in the world. I am so spoiled. Even up to my grandparents I'm spoiled. I miss them alot, and miss going over to their house and helping them with random stuff, and hearing cool stories about their lives. Grandparents are rad. And all my cousins and uncles and aunts. I got the pictures from Christmas and its so awesome. Everyone looks like their doing great. Carter, don't stress too much, keep preparing yourself to return to the mission field. We'll be surfing together again and sharing stories about our missions before you know it. WE NEED YOU.
Tanner, you'll be serving soon enough. Prepare yourself, and go out with the missionaries. You're already a Priest, you can go on divisions with the missionaries if you want, it would help them out alot, and you'll learn a heck of alot too.
Things are going well here in Cuichapa. Still a heck of a long way from civilization, but we're enjoying it haha. Lots of good people. Oh, and Jessica and Dafne were baptized on Wednesday, because Presidente couldn't be there on Monday and Jessica wanted him there. But no worries, everything went well, and our service was very spiritual. Jessica cried when she shared her testimony, and said "La tercera vez es la vencida" haha or "The third time is the charm." We now have a branch 2 members bigger. And we're putting alot of foundation in the branch right now too. I'll let you know how it all goes down, we're establishing a ward mission plan, and its going to be legit. Hold on tight haha
I love you all. Don't forget to forget yourselves in the service of others. Mosiah 2:17
Love, Elder Knight

Hay milagros cada día (There are miracles every day)

¡Mi familia!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!! Oh man, I have the best Dad in the world, no doubt. I miss you so much, and everything I do I hope I can make you as well as my Heavenly Father proud. You are so legit, Mom told me about your new calling, it is just what I have been praying for, you are going to be sooo rad, Dad.

This week has been pretty rad. So we've been struggling to get Jessica's daughter, Dafne, to make the decision to get baptized this week because Jessica would like them both to do it together. But Dafne's dad (Jessica and Dafne's dad are divorced) is from a super catholic family and says no to Dafne when we're not there. Tough stuff, especially when Jessica wants to get baptized. Time keeps making it tougher and tougher, because Satan starts to work on the people. So we've been praying alot this week.

As for other families we are teaching, Rosa Isela and Sayra still haven't been able tocome to the church. It has been 4 weeks, and she keeps all her commitments, but something crazy and legitamit always happens on saturday or sunday morning and she can't make it to church. We taught Sayra the 10 commandmets with hand signals that Elder Collete and Elder Rumsey taught me in the MTC, it was legit, and she remembers all of them. Rosa Isela is also very excited, and loves to listen to us. We'll see how things go.

Another family, Julian and his family. Julian is the grandpa with his wife, daughters, and grandchildren living in his home. Very humble family, and super receptive. Julian and his son-in-law, Pascual, came to church yesterday. They walked from the other side of town. So crazy, but not too crazy as we do it almost every day as missionaries. But for a 60 year old dude, its pretty awesome. And he loved it. Church went great, we taught our gospel principles class, after which our branch President asked me to teach priesthood too, it was pretty great, but stressful as I had not read the lesson at all...

Okay, time for the surprise. So after we wahed our laundry today, we felt we had to go to Jessica's to see how she was doing, and we taught her and Dafne about baptism again. When we came to the door, Dafne told us she was not going to get baptized, (broke my heart) But as we were teaching, Jessica got really serious and shared how she knows she needs to get baptized. Then Jessica looked at Dafne and said "Well, what do you think, do you want to get baptized with me in a little bit?" And Dafne was like, "...Yeeeessss". And this was at like 4:00 in the afternoon. We went to go fill the baptismal font, and clean the church for two hours. Emptying the font with buckets and cleaning all the dirt out of the bottom, then filling it back up with buckets. It was fun to say the least. And the baptism will be small. Only a few people, but it should be very spiritual as we have it planned out. We're pretty stoked. The baptism is scheduled for 8:00! I'll let you know how it went next monday =)

As for the family(mine) I love you all and miss you so much. Thank you so much for your prayers, we need them so much. I know that miracles happen, every day we can find one that happened in our day. Speaking of which, I'm hoping that mylost wallet returns back to me this week =( I think I dropped it in a taxi after paying while we were helping deliver food donations to a sister in the ward. Dang, seems like bad things happen when you're doing good. But I know there's a reason. I didn't have any money in it, the last bill I used to paythe taxi. But it had my cali license(which expires before I get back), my health care card, and my chase card (uh ohhh) but its pretty well hidden in my wallet, behind a piece of leather. (I hope). We've talked to a few taxis, and there's a bit of hope, I'm praying alot haha.

OH, also, never give up on less-actives. nomatter how far they fall from the church. Miguel came back to church a few weeks ago, and yesterday came in a white button shirt, and I gave him my tie to wear. He's so legit, everyone says he was like a crazy drugaddict before and they're a bit scared of him, but he's so chill. He reminds me of alot of kids from highschool haha. REally, don't give up, everyone can come back..

I'm so proud of my family, and so grateful to be a Knight, almost as proud and grateful I am to be a disciple of Jesus Christ here on the mission in Mexico. I hope we all can be disciples of him, even if we don't have a nametag. I know you can. I love you all! Take care!

Love, Elder Knight

P.S. thanks for the letters from kenny and sister johnson, soo legit. I'm so happy for my fellow brothers and sisters in the work o the Lord!!