Estar al tanto

Hey family,
I haven't heard from Brandon yet, but WOW! He sounds like he's become twice the stud he was before the mission. I'm happy for him. And glad to hear that you were able to Skype a bit yesterday. I heard from a member about some civil unrest in Egypt. I'm glad Tyler's out of there and chilling in Bethlehem for the holidays. In some ways it hadn't really felt like the Christmas season yet for me, but I've been wishing everyone I meet a merry Christmas and I can feel the excitement in the air. And tomorrow we're having a mission Christmas party, temple trip on Wednesday with half the mission in my session. Our ward Christmas parties are also this week, and I'm looking forward to meeting all the friends of members that come along. I feel like good things are soon to happen in our areas. Our talks a week ago in sacrament meeting were bomb, and then yesterday one of the members gave us a huge compliment. It was a high councilman who came with us to a lesson this week and at the start of priesthood meeting he kept going on about how impressed he was with our teaching skills and whatnot. Some members are starting to get things going with their friends, which is wonderful. I hope I'm one of those members who's always inviting my friends to church, firesides, FHE, activities, to read from the Book of Mormon, etc. "Fear not to do good."
So last night we had a mission president's fireside at the institute in my area, so my companion and I got to translate the fireside into Spanish. It was my first time officially translating and it was actually pretty fun. We just sat back in the corner and switched back and forth. Occasionally another Spanish missionary who was listening would look back at me because of how I translated it. Haha it was fun.
We kinda had a rough week with the church attendance. We invited so many people and got several commitments that we felt were solid, but only one lady showed up. And she can't be baptized right now because she's not married and her husband doesn't want to get married any time soon. It's a sad situation that unfortunately has happened a lot on my mission. And there's only so much we can do. But I know that God is working with us and our investigators. A friend of the investigator who came to church has a lot of depression, so the investigator told her friend, "Well come to church! It'll help you." Amazing! She's already a missionary.
Yeah, we can Skype at the time that you mentioned, Mom. That'll work. I'm looking forward to it. You can see how much my hairline has receded...just kidding, it's not too bad :) I pray that you will all be safe and well. I love you all!

Elder Gathro