Happy New Years

Man the weeks are going by so fast! Its crazy really! Christmas this year was very plain. Almost like a normal day really. But thats alright, I realized that lights and presents and that stuff don't really matter anyways. Life goes on. The thing I did enjoy a ton though was seeing the Family! Man I missed you guys so much! Ha, even the Clowards and ole Sammy Walton managed to peak in and say Hi! Love it. The other awesome thing that happened this week was we had 2 Baptisms. Syra and Joshua Pimentel. Their family is almost all members now, just waiting on the last boy who is only 6 so I won't be here when he gets Baptized. I got asked to Baptize them so I was really excited. I love Joshua, he reminds me of my kid brother a lot haha little troublemaker. On Sunday our new investigator (Emanuel) made it to Church! We were so happy, this kid is really promising. Hopefully he will continue to want to listen to us and I will be here when he gets Baptized. We set a date for Jan. 25 so hopefully he keeps coming to Church. The other day me and Elder Yu were at a dinner appointment and I looked in the front yard and noticed this ghetto, lower than regulation, wooden ping pong table. The paint was chipping and it had a little bit of lean to one side, but I picked up that paddle and heavy, scruffed up ping pong ball and challenged my comp (who was on the High School team) right there. I beat him 11-9. I was so proud of myself. I used all of the Frei tactics I had learned over the years...its all about getting into their head. I paraded around the yard for a good minute or so then called it good. It felt good to pick up a paddle again. Yesterday I'm pretty sure I saw Si Robertson from Duck Dynasty in our area...only he was Filipino. Maybe they're cousins or something I don't know but he had the face, beard, glasses, and cup so I'm almost positve they're related. Who knows really. I'm miss you all and hope this New Years is awesome! I know I won't be getting any sleep that night, Filipinos are crazy about Fireworks. They already have one named after the Typhoon called "Super Yolanda" so I'm told. Love you guys!

-Elder Akins