Week 45 & 46

 Hola a todos! So these weeks have been a rollercoaster! 

We'll start it off on a good note (pun intended🎵). There has been a "12 Days of Christmas" music video initiative going on in the mission, where we had to put together 12 music videos of Christmas songs with only a month of preparation and coordination 🙃 I had an absolute BLAST putting together my jazzed up Angels We Have Heard On High arrangement, and with the help of a bunch of other missionaries to record the audio, video, and the editing, the final product turned out really good!! I also made/played the piano accompaniments for two of the other music videos, and another full choir and cello + piano arrangement is in the works for New Year's Day as well! Here is a link to all of the 12 videos: A Musical Christmas

Now for the rough stuff. We'd been teaching some 4 different people for more than three months now that have progressed a ton, but have been struggling to keep their commitments. We went from having five lessons a week with them... to one... if we were lucky. They would cancel 5 minutes before our lessons, and one of them straight up told us that she wasn't willing to change and apparently she didn't have a second in the day to read or pray. We made the decision to stop teaching them for some time. All of the progress that we had made last transfer felt like it was just thrown away. However, we now have more time during the day to find new people to teach, and hopefully something good will come of that! 

Just before these challenges, however, we had a really fun meeting as a mission about setting high goals and not letting excuses or weaknesses get in our way. To demonstrate so, we wrote a bunch of excuses we might have on a piece of glass, and after announcing the setbacks we had written, we chucked the piece of glass in a trash can with a big rock in it, and absolutely *obliterated* the glass. We still have high hopes and plans to get stuff done this transfer 💪😤

Wish me good luck! 

(Weeks consisting of 12/1/20 - 12/7/20 and 12/8/20 - 12/14/20) 

Elder Terry 

Fotos:

1) A cool picture from the music video shooting

2-3) Me taking a picture of Elder Carrier, who is taking a picture of Elder Heaps modeling his white socks off

4-8) I apparently really like taking silhouette pictures

9) Us reading off our piece of glass, just before destroying it

Week 43 & 44

Once again, this past Tuesday was transfer day! 

Things that didn't change: 

- I am still serving in the Copper Hills 5th ward, and I'm super excited cause we finally got a ward missionary leader, so things are about to get pretty crazy 

- Elder Carrier and I are going to continue being companions

- I am a Zone Leader once more 💪

Things that changed:

- And once again (again again again again again again...), I'm in another trio, with Elder Heaps joining Elder Carrier and I. He's from Texas ... need I say more? 

- The Jordan Landing Zone got dissolved, cause the Tongan District that I was in got moved into the newly formed Polynesian Zone, so now I am actually in a Spanish district and I'm leading the Oquirrh Zone.

- I moved into to a different member's basement like 2 minutes away for some reason, and although it's pretty niiice, it doesn't have carpet anywhere sooo I'm probably gonna ask for an emergency transfer 🤷‍♂️😅

We received a super cool message from our prophet on the earth today, President Russell M. Nelson, about gratitude and hope, and in the week leading up to Thanksgiving, he challenged us to post on social media about the things that we are grateful for. It was super fun to do, and look back about the things that I am most grateful, and most of those things were people... and most of these people were you! Those that read these emails and have supported me for so long are the people that I appreciate so much in my life. I know Thanksgiving is long gone now, but never forget to tell people that you're grateful for them and for what they do, and you can easily put a smile on someone's face! 

I love you and I'm grateful for you all! 

(Weeks consisting of 11/17/20 - 11/23/20 and 11/24/20 - 11/30/20) 

Elder Terry 

Fotos:

1) Business squad

2) Party squad

3-10) There's a high school nearby, and for some morning workouts, we go and play some sports, and do some exercise! My favorite part though is the sunrises that we get, so enjoy these pics!

11) I forgot to take a pic of Thanksgiving dinner, but we played a bit of socially distanced basketball afterwards

12) Here's a pic of one of the people, Yomaira, and her two sons that we're teaching English classes to!