Birthday Party and Crete / New Comp, New Town, New Challenges, Lots of Fun

Elder Holman and I.

Well it happened.  After 9 months of being in the promised land, I've been assigned to serve in a little town called Crete, Nebraska, about 30 miles outside of Lincoln.  Leaving Sioux City was really hard, to say the least.  My love for those people is so strong that saying, "see you later" to them was not something I thoroughly enjoyed.  We found out Thursday and spent the whole day packing and running around like crazy people seeing people.  Definitely not something I liked doing.  

However, I am supper happy to be here in Crete.  I know that the Lord has something planned for me even if I have no idea what it is. 
Let me tell you about the area.

Crete is a smallish town and we're the only missionaries for 30 miles.  We cover part of the Seward Branch that meets in Seward and the Pioneer Ward that meets in Lincoln.  We teach in Spanish and English so all of our English investigators go to Seward and all the hispanics go to Lincoln.  Teaching in English feels weird.  Anyway.  My companion is Elder Holman, who was Elder Shipley's  MTC comp, and Elder Shipley's new companion's trainer.  He also served with Elder Juan for a transfer so I've heard a lot about him.  Us Spanish people are all related somehow.  

HIm and I are crazy similar.  Our teaching style is the same, our likes and dislikes are super similar,  and we both really want to help small little Crete have some big success.  I'm excited to be working with him.

The area is great.  The Apartment... not so much.  We're infested with Cockroaches like you wouldn't believe.  Every 2 minutes you'll hear a SMACK as a flip flop gets swung at a nasty little cucaracha.   We also live pretty far from anyone that would want to feed us since there's a total of 2 members who live in Crete.   Maybe I'll lose all the weight I gained in Sioux City!  

I don't have really anything to report on at this point, PLUS the computer time here is pretty small so I just want you to know I'm doing great!  I'm really really happy and having a good time.   I love you.  I hope you enjoy the pictures.  Thank you for all the Birthday wishes :)

Love,
Elder Zack

These are some of the families that we saw my last day and throughout the week.  I love these people so much.

The Ramirez Family

Norberto (yes his jersey is on backwards.  He usually
doesn't wear shirts unless a camara is pulled out :) )

The Lagunas Family

The Lima Family

The Brisenos 

The Alvarados

The Adams

The Florys

Vilma found out Hermana Thompson and I were leaving Sioux City and since Hermana Thompson's birthday was the 9th and mine is on Wednesday, she made us a birthday cake.

However Spanish Tradition is that you take a bite out of the cake... I let the picture tell you what happened next.