Happy New Year to all!!

Wow! Time goes by so freaking fast. These are the last few days in the year 2014. This is literally unbelievable. This Wednesday, I say goodbye to far and away the best year of my entire life. From family, to best friends, to State Championships, to being in the greatest service in the world :) what an amazing time it has been! Now time to move on and make 2015 the best year of my life completely dedicated to the Lord!

This last week was awesome :) Merry Christmas to all! Thursday talking to the family was.... pretty freaking great :) I love you guys and thank you so much for that great opportunity! Also to hear that everyone is doing great and healthy, it was just a great day! Me and my companion worked super hard all week, so it was definitely worth it :) the next day, we had a huge MultiZone conference with about half the mission! And it was so much fun! We had a conference, played games, received gifts, saw pictures of our family (our picture at Liz and Calvin's wedding was easily the best looking), and just had a great time! It was super fun :) the gift we received... peanut butter and jelly! Hahahah freaking sick :)

This last Saturday we had another baptism! His name is Gerald and he's awesome :) he's a little kid but he was super excited to get baptized :) this week we should have two or three more! This week is the last week that Elder Castro and I have in his training. The thing that we are told as we begin someone are two things; be an example and baptize. And I think that hopefully I've done a good enough job :) 

Well not a whole lot to say because I just barely talked with the whole family... but HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL! Let's make the very most of it. And the way we can do it is by serving the Lord :) love you all!

Elder Merrill

Pictures from their multi zone conference on Dec. 26th 

Elder Merrill with the new APs

Elder Benson and Elder Merrill