Excerpts

Excerpts from Zach's letters:

Monday, August 12, 2013

Well, this week I got to meet our new mission president, President Newsome, along with his wife and son! It was a lot of fun to meet him in person and get to know him better.  President Newsome is awesome and is really chill.  It will be interesting to see what happens in the following months in the mission.  As of right now, he is not making any changes with the mission.  The mission is doing AWESOME!  We have had a lot of baptisms and are seeing a lot of miracles. Vamo arriba!

I got to talk to Elder Barlow and Elder Hicks for a long time this past week.  Every time we talk to each other we´re always laughing and sharing stories. 

Mom, I got your package! Thanks for the peanut butter. I'm definitely going to be eating a lot of PB & J sandwiches.  I´m going to try and get some weight on me! 

My mission zone (the "Este Zone") has been working hard!  We are super pumped with the effort that the elders have been putting in.  We´re going to keep it going!  We found out changes yesterday and sadly, Elder Briones will be transferring.  I´m going to get a new companion and his name is Elder Teran.  He's from Mexico and he sounds like a great kid!  I´ll let you know more about him this next week.  Elder Briones is sad because he doesn´t want to leave.  We got along great so it's going to be tough to see him go.

Hey, quick question! I´m sitting here with Elder Lacey and he told me that "Ziggy" from BYU had a pick 6 in his first play as a professional athlete in the NFL!  Is it true?  He is a stud!

Anyway, the mission is the bomb! I'm loving every second of it!  Elder Barlow, Hicks, and I were talking the other day how we are excited to see our families again, but also how we are a little depressed that the mission is going to end in just a couple of months.  It's weird to think that I've been away from home for almost two years.  It's been like a dream!  I don´t know how to explain it, but it's super weird.  However, I've learned so much and I'm excited to apply the things I've learned after the mission. I love you guys so much and can´t wait to hear from you again.  I´ll keep you posted on everything. 
 
Zach with the new mission president and his wife