February 8 update

During the past week, Elder Kenison and Elder Alonzo have had some better success. Vacations seem to have settled down, so their teaching opportunities have increased. They have a baptism scheduled for this coming Sunday — Yubomir, the young man who has been attending Church and seminary for a long time and was assumed to already be a Church member. Other families are making good progress. Nice to see the work improving!

Matt expressed some feelings about areas where he's seen progress during the first 11 months of his mission:

yeah. spanish is coming GREAT!!! haha and Elder Alonzo is FINALLY showing interest in english. haha so two goals accomphlished. haha but i'm excited for my next year of my mission. because i'll kinda know what i'm doing and i'll just get to work :D WOOT!!!!

He told us about one interesting experience:

so we got asked to give service to a family. i wasn't sure really what it was but we went. haha when we got there i learned that the house of the family had birds living in the attic. SO.... we got to take them out. (us and one of the family members) we found 6 birds (not like the little ones, they were big. like bigger than sete. by alot) also we found 2 eggs and two baby birds. haha it was crazy. haha when we told the hermana (hermana perez) she screemed. she couldn't believe that there were 6 birds living in the attic. it was funny. it took in total about 2 hours. haha

This past week was a week of CELEBRATION. In addition to his missionary work, Elder Kenison managed to squeeze in some important holidays and commemorations.

February 2 is remembered in our family as "Matthew Adoption Day." It was on February 2, 1990, two weeks after Matt was born, that we received the phone call from LDS Social Services (now Family Services) informing us that our adoption application was about to be completed and we were invited to come and meet our son. So this is kind of a "second birthday" to Matt.

To celebrate the day, Matt wrote about the photo below:

this is matthew adoption day. haha we also had a noche de hogar [home evening] so we had a cake (in my hand) that was the cake for my birthday :D and then the cake to the left (my right) that's the cake we gave to Hermana Elizabeth [mother of a family they are teaching]. and then in front to the left No-bake-cookies (or as they say here caca de mono, or monkey poo haha) and last but not least. on the bottom right... brownies :D needless to say at the end of the day elder Alonzo and I both felt sick haha

Quite a celebration! We're glad he enjoyed Matthew Adoption Day. We were all thinking about him and wishing him the best on that day.

The next event was "World Nutella Day" on Friday February 6. Matt loves Nutella, and was glad to celebrate; he came up his own creation:

dia de Nutella. haha this is grapes with nutella. haha they weren't bad. haha

And then third, on Saturday February 7, Matt celebrated "Ice Cream for Breakfast Day" - another holiday (first Saturday in February) which has been a tradition in our family since he was a child.

Helado por desayuno :D WOOT haha

We're not completely sure what this concoction is, but it DOES look tasty:

But those major events were not the only food-related event. He also shared this:

this picture would make dad proud. haha i needed to eat a little this morning before playing futbol. so haha i grabbed an Avacado and some salt haha and my companion took a picture (haha he doesn't like avacado's or as they say here, palta) haha

And one more, also from Nutella Day:

this is me... eating a watermelon haha with a huge spoon. that i actually got to fit in my mouth haha

What a character. We love you, Matt!