Happy New Year!

Hey family! happy new years!
So New years was cool. We went and ate dinner with a family and they gave us a little cake, and then we went to our own special new years party in our apartment where we ate bread and drank soda.. there's a lot of little bread shops everywhere and bread is really cheap so we went with that.. i think i fell asleep at 2:00am because of all the fireworks, loud music and partying around our apartment. Brazilians don't like the pretty, showy fireworks.. they just like the really loud ones that could blow off a few fingers if it got too close. this week we didn't have any baptisms though we did have one planned. It's a 15 year old girl who got a strong testimony of the church and answer that it's true, she just moves a bunch between her parent's house and her grandparent's house. We teach her at her grandparent's house, and she pretty much lives there, but during the holidays and school break she's moves between the two a bunch so it's hard to find her at home. We've ran into some good people to teach. We marked a baptism with a man for the 17th of January and we'll probably baptize 2 teenage boys with him. we're teaching some references and street contacts that want to be baptized so all is going well there. That's cool that you guys went shot with the paintball gun. There should be some places around there in Mesa where you can the place and play for a few hours with other people. I've only broken into the other elder's house one time and that's because they wouldn't come to the door and i was really really thirsty... to explain how i got in, in Brazil they don't have the giant AC units that are in the back of American houses. They get a little AC box unit, and put in a cement box, outside, usually, above their windows. but the missionaries don't have the little AC boxes so Elder Silveira gave me a boost up and I climbed though the little hole in the cement box where the small AC unit would go and opened the door from behind. it was at night and me and my companion had to stay with Elder. Silveira because his companion finished his mission and went home. but he didn't have any water and the other missionaries were sleeping and wouldn't answer the door so i snuck in, drank some water and came back to the apartment for the night. It was complicated and a really tight fit, but i haven't gained or lost any weight, so i'm still kinda skinny and fit right through. i'll see if i can take a picture sometime of the front of their apartment and send it to you guys.
I got the picture of Laura's room and those other pictures that dad sent last week. Laura's room is way pretty. congratz. Hey if there's a way to send a new cd player, that other one that i got last year died somehow. I'm not sure what's wrong, it spins the cd, just the sound that leaves from it is really weak and i almost can't hear it, even with the amplifier and new batteries.
It was great to hear from you guys again! Have a great week. Love you guys! talk to you guys next week -Andrew