Ring In the Christ

Family and friends,

As this year ends, I am completely astounded at how quickly it has flown by. I am so overjoyed to be able to stay here in Argentina for another year, but I miss you all, as well. Thank you for making home a place where I want to be, and thank you for the support that so many of you have shown me from all the way over there.

Elder Ericksen and I obliterated our record of highest number of people contacted in a week, getting 215 where the previous record was 134. A great way to end the year. And 215 is perfect because the hymn "Ring Out, Wild Bells" is a hymn for the New Year, and it's number 215 in the Church's hymnal. That may or may not have been intentional.

Honestly, I don't have much more to say, just that I love you all, and I miss you, but I am also happy where I am. Thanks be to God for a wonderful year that has given me a clean heart and pure hands.

With endless love,

Elder Hill

"As gentle as feathers, the snow piles high.

Our world gets rewritten and retraced every time.

Like fresh plates and clean slates, our future is white;

New Year's resolutions will reset tonight."

 - "Snow", Sleeping At Last

"Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

The flying cloud, the frosty light:

The year is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

"Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

"Ring out the grief that saps the mind

For those that here we see no more;

Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind.

"Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;

Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

"Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times;

Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes

But ring the fuller minstrel in.

"Ring out false pride in place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.

"Ring out old shapes of foul disease;

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace.

"Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be."

 - "In Memoriam", Alfred Lord Tennyson

Fotos:

• Con Elder Jones en Alvear, 24 de diciembre
• Festejando la Navidad
• Un otro cubo que me compré (un Skewb)
• Un Gear Cube que me compré
• Una sandía que llevé en mi bici; pesa 12 kilos
• La Luna al lado de Venus