The one with the start of 2017!!!

Hola Todos!!! Feliz Año Nuevo!!!! I hope you all had a great new years with fun and safety as well! As we come to the start of a new year and i begin my full year of which i will be in my mission i think alot about the traditions of New Years and what it means to me. Its the opportunity to start anew, to become better, to set goals and to actually strive to accomplish them. This year will be one of the most different years of my entire life, but im excited to see what this year has in store for me. I challange you all to think about what you want to accomplish this year, where do you want to see yourself as youre counting down the seconds to 2018, write them down, and actually strive to cross them off. Alright my speech is at the close, now onto the week...

SO nothing too exciting hap`pened this week until the New Years, just a normal week of workign with people and having everyday different experiences. SO lets talk abotu what one does here in Chile for New Years. So my comp and I went over to a family's house for a New Years dinner, it was great except nobody eats dinner here until like 10:30 and since we have to be in the house by 10 we basically ate dinner just us two while everyone else watched us haha. then we went back to the apartment where we moved the couch to the window of our third story apartment and we waited until Midnight when fireworks lit up the sky, people shoot up fireworks from all over santiago and the best were from this mountain that is pretty close to where we are. and on top of that, everyone lights up paper like chinese-ish lanterns and lift them up in the sky, it was like that scene in Tangled, it was so awesome, i was tempted to start belting Tangled music hahaha. then we put vanilla icecream with ginger ale and made like a traditional new years drink here in Chile but i dont remember what its called. it was pretty bomb. 

so thats basically all for this week, i wish you all an amazng 2017 with so much joy and prosperity. Until next week from Chile.

Elder Carlos Cabrera

Facts of the week:

1. its actually really hard to launch up lanterns in the sky on New Years, could very easily get caught on powerlines or fly up into apartment complexes, you can imagine the danger possibilities

2. Im pretty sure Chile has way less firework regulations than the states because some little kids could have very well bombed a small village with how much explsoves they were dealing with

3. In Chile people dont kiss at midnight, they hug...it made for a much more comfortable night for me and my companion hahaha