Excerpt from a Christmas Letter Home

"Thank you very much for your message it really really makes the day and I am thinking of you too in this... well... much less than "winter wonderlandy" environment.  I had a great long talk with mom and dad and alex this morning mostly about opportunities for things to come.  All us volunteers walked into this experience knowing that we are starting our service essentially on Xmas weekend and that is was going to be really hard.  So far I have dodged the mental breakdowns and am making progress getting to know my family and I think we are integrating well.  I had one great breakthrough today with one of the locals, Luis the father of my host mother, who with perfect punctuation described the true value of having a volunteer in the site.  That my presence is not just an integration of myself but as a bridge between the host country and the united states.  And that this interaction exposes them to new ways of thinking that they might never have come up with on there own. They used the phrase, “nadie es profeta de su propio tierra.” If I understand this correctly, it highlights the importance of someone coming in from the outside. Although few and far between, these small revelations and breakthroughs remind me why I am here (despite the fact that this time of year is almost universally reserved to be with your own family).  I do dearly miss all the Christmas things from the north country; walks up old route 3 with heavily snow laden fir trees, a stiff eggnog with Bourbon, lounging around the fireplace at the humble Foss farm after a good trudge outside, and great discussion about the goings on of friends and family." -December 25, 2010