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Dear Family,

This week has been pretty good.  It was weird though... I had to go on splits with a Peruvian...  Peruvians have really crappy spanish.  I couldnt understand anything he said.  So that was pretty hard.  And we were in Manizales.  It is super steep uphill in every direction. It is super tough.  So that was Monday and Tuesday.  Oh and the peruvian and I aren´t the best of friends...  He kept trying to tell me about things that I´m doing wrong and stuff.  And he did every little thing that bothers me. I don´t know how he knew...

On Wednesday, we went to another area called Pereira.  It is about 1 hour away from Chinchiná in another direction.(from Manizales) In Pereira, we had a Christmas dinner with Presidente Bolívar.  It was really fun.  I talked to the americans from 3 different areas the whole time too.  I learned that we can only have 32 americans in the mission at one time.  And that the first group of americans left when I got here.  So americans have only been in Colombia for 2 years. It was kind of cool to hear.  

Last night was nuts...  We had to be in the house at 6:00 because of danger and drunks and stuff.  But it was hard to sleep because there was music and fireworks literally all night long.  And today,  every one is still drunk.  So that is why p day is today.  Today we didn´t do anything.  It has been tough for the past couple of days because no one wants us and everyone was getting ready for their wild parties.

The rest of my Christmas was good... I really enjoyed all of the gifts.  It was a little bit tough to know what was from who... but i really appreciate everything I got.  It was a really weird Christmas without family and snow and stuff.  And it didn´t really seem like Christmas.  

Anyway, I don´t have a lot more to say.  It was good to hear from all of you!  Oh, so it sounds like everyone has some fun trips planned...  I´ll be excited to hear about them.  I have thought about Mexico a lot lately and can´t wait to go when I get back.  

So i´m gonna try and send a few pictures with this email... so hopefully it works.

I love you all and miss ya!!! I hope you have a good week!

Corey