Hermana Elizabeth Hurtado - Peru, Lima Central Mission & Utah, Provo Service Mission

Ellie successfully and honorably completed her 18 month mission serving first in Lima, Peru and then in Provo, Utah. She began her mission on December 2, 2024 and finished on June 28, 2026. 

She gave her mission report on June 28, 2026 and was released from service later that day.  We are so very proud of her because we know how hard it was for her, yet she did it!

Below is her report:

Once I Was A Missionary

I want to thank all of you for coming, especially those of you who endured my painfully sarcastic emails and still chose to come. As most of you know my mission started in Lima Peru where I was assigned to teach, but ended here in Provo as a service missionary. Being in Peru was a very special experience because it was where I wanted to go, despite being terrified, and where my ancestry is from. When I was in Peru, a lot of people would look at me funny when they heard my last name. I imagine it would be pretty disorienting to hear a Spanish name attached to the face of a total gringa who couldn’t even pronounce it correctly. 

From basically the moment I was taught about missions, I wanted to serve one. I grew up hearing my parent’s mission stories and how life changing it was for them. I decided pretty young that if I were to go anywhere, I wanted to go to Peru. I wanted to fulfill my dad’s dream of serving in Peru and connect to my roots. However, when I got the call to Peru, I was terrified, and deep down I wasn’t sure if it was something I’d be able to do. But, I didn’t want to let fear rule my life, so I went.  

I’d like to give you a little taste of what it was like arriving in San Martin de Porres, Lima Peru. Flying into Peru and looking down, it looked like a dirty dust bowl with very little green. Just miles and miles of brown. What I realized when I landed was that Peru is full of color, even though most things are covered in a thin layer of dirt. The flat roofed houses are built up to the sky, and each one was painted a different color. I found houses in red, green, orange, bright pink, and even royal blue. The dirt roads were adorned with dust-covered fig trees and odd looking dogs. Every morning I woke up to a vendor yelling through a speakerphone saying that he was selling tamales, and every night I looked out the window and saw the glowing city. Surrounding us were Cerros, hills covered in small shacks and houses that lit up at night. Every day after our studies we would climb up steep staircases in the Cerros to knock doors and find people. Of all the charm that my little areas had, the most charming were the people, who would lovingly open their doors to us. I met people in Peru who I never want to forget. Although they came from the humblest of circumstances, they served and gave of themselves as though they were rich. 

In Peru I experienced many things, and in some ways I feel as though I experienced everything in 6 months that I would’ve experienced in the expected 18 months. My companions and I were chased by a drunk man, swarmed by pigeons, bible bashed, fed cow intestine and chicken heart, flirted with by creepy men, told we were too fat and too skinny, chased by dogs, stalked, and I was spat on by a very scary old lady. We also met loving and faith-filled people who chose to follow Jesus Christ despite great heartache. We taught kids who were full of goodness and truth, who desired to do what’s right. We laughed and cried with our friends, and watched them make covenants with God. 

Despite the air that smelled like wet dog and cockroaches living in our drains, I didn’t want to come home. As hard as it was to get up every day and face things that gave me anxiety and stomach pain, I loved serving. I wanted to serve and teach and bring the gospel to these loving and eccentric people. I wanted to have the full experience, and to stand up at my homecoming saying I did it. But God and the missionary department had other plans for me. 

I struggled a lot when I came home as many early returned and transferred missionaries do. I felt ashamed, defective, and entirely alone. I felt that I must have not been consecrated or committed or strong enough to serve the standard mission. Despite how hard it has been to not have the mission I wanted, I have loved serving here. I have found joy in being a servant of God, and in being a good person. Since being home, 

• Weeding my neighbor's yard and visiting him while he was in the hospital, and later speaking at his funeral
• walked dogs at the animal shelter to give them a better life and prepare them for finding a home. 
• Worked on projects for the church at the church office building as well as gardening in the Salt Lake City temple grounds.. 
• I taught and bore my testimony with the Spanish speaking sisters in Provo
• Helped a woman named Jackie pack up her house and move to California, which ended up being a 4 month project
• I sung in a choir of missionaries at old folks homes
• Served at the church Employment Center helping Spanish speakers find work 
• Volunteered at the Food Pantry
• Served at the bishops storehouse keeping the shelves stocked and helping Spanish speaking patrons get their groceries
• Served as an ordinance worker and gardened for the Orem temple grounds
• Served as sister-training-leader and helped plan activities for my zone.
• made birthday cards and goodbye cards for finishing missionaries
• Volunteered at the Welfare Square Bakery cutting and packaging bread. 
• Served my neighbors by raking leaves in the fall, caroling in the winter, going on walks, and visiting. 

Of all the service I was able to do, the most rewarding and cherished to me was serving my grandparents who I missed so much when I was in Peru. I had the opportunity to help my grandma compile her personal history into a book and include my own illustrations. I got to live with and visit them, help them get to doctors appointments, buy groceries, and push my grandpa in his wheel chair. Together, my grandma and I planned Grandpa Don’s 95th birthday party in July, and prepared for his funeral in February. I will never forget the time I spent in the care center combing his hair, feeding him, sitting with him when he was in pain, and attempting to shave his face, something I never thought I’d do. I think God knew those moments were ones I wouldn’t want to miss, and so he let me come home. 

At various points in my mission, I feared that I ruined God’s plan for me, and that I was too broken to be repaired. I would like to speak to anyone today who throughout their lives have felt the same. I know what it feels like to have made the same mistake too many times and to feel that anything I offer isn’t enough for the Lord. I know how easy it is to compare yourself to everyone else who seems to be doing life better. 

In our faith, we believe that we have a merciful and loving Heavenly Father, who in the beginning set forth a plan for us. This plan was for us to come to earth where our spirits would be joined with physical bodies. We would experience mortality and all that comes with it, and from our own experience we would become like God, for “as man now is, God once was, [and] as God now is, man may be." We were instructed that this would be a plan of happiness, a plan of salvation, and a plan of redemption. 

 In the temple, we learn of this plan through Adam and Eve. God placed Adam and Eve in the garden and they were presented two choices; to live in the garden and remain in a state of innocence, knowing no good for they knew no evil, or to transgress God’s commandments and be driven out of the garden to experience mortal life. Adam and Eve chose to partake of the forbidden fruit, which God commanded them not to eat, and they realized their nakedness. Before they were driven out of the Garden and separated from God’s presence,  God covered their nakedness with coats of skins made from sacrificed animals, a symbol of the Savior Jesus Christ, who would be sacrificed to pay for our sins and afflictions. Reflecting upon their experience, Eve said, “were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto the obedient.”

God wants us to one day be perfect like he is perfect, but I’ve learned that from the beginning, he knew that we would make mistakes and sin. What we often forget is that making mistakes and experiencing pain, loss, and sorrow are essential to our growth. In the Book of Mormon, Lehi taught that there must be “an opposition in all things. If not so…righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad.”  That is why our Heavenly Father sent His son to suffer, bleed, and die for us. It is through our life experiences, experiences of obedience and sin, joy, and suffering, that we grow into the people we are meant to become. For this reason, God sent his Son Jesus Christ, who saves us from enduring heartache and the permanence of sin. Christ offers us atonement for all unjust, all sin, and all regret. I’ve learned that the Plan isn't to be perfect and avoid all mistakes. If that were the case, there would be no need for redemption and salvation, and there would be no happiness. The plan is for our sorrows, weaknesses, and mistakes to be consecrated for our good. Sister Tami Runia taught that “We don’t stay on the covenant path by never making a mistake. We stay on the path by repenting every day. And when we’re repenting, God forgives without shaming us, comparing us to anyone else, or scolding us because this is the same thing we were repenting of last week.” 

I can’t stand up here and say that I’ve been a perfect missionary, or even the one that I sought out to be. I have made mistakes and experienced great disappointment. But in the process, I have left my own Garden of Eden, my own state of Innocence, and I now know of the joy that Eve speaks of; the joy of my redemption. 

I have learned that my loving Heavenly Father cares far more about my personal commitment to Him, my growth, and my conversion, than the mistakes I make. He cares about where I’ve been and where I’m going, and doesn’t compare my progress to others. Even if I feel that I am far behind and don't measure up, the Lord is the only person who can judge me perfectly, because he knows me perfectly. He knows every detail of my life, he knows why I’ve done the things I’ve done, and he knows the difficulty I face.

Dale G Renlund taught, “Jesus Christ understands our challenges, having taken on not only our sins but also our griefs, sicknesses, and frailties. Because He endured and completed the infinite atoning sacrifice, He empathizes perfectly with us. He can ‘calm [our] anguish’ and offers ‘gentle … peace … for [our] beseeching.’ He, and only He, can consider every factor that shapes who we are: our genetics, intellectual abilities, traditions, experiences, mental and emotional conditions, and every other circumstance that affects who we are. He, and only He, will eventually judge us ‘according to [our] works, according to the desire of [our] hearts.”

I’ve learned that God can use even the most painful of experiences or mistakes to fortify us, and bring us closer to Him. In January this year, my Grandpa Don fell and broke his hip. At age 95, he was ready to go. But because he loved my grandma so dearly, he chose to stay a little longer, and get a painful hip replacement. In the weeks following, I visited them both several times a week in the care center. Grandpa was in anguish. He was constantly uncomfortable and in pain, and the nurses were poking and prodding him every 30 minutes. He’s always been stoic, but while he was there, I saw a side of him I hadn’t before. In all my life I had never seen him cry. One evening after an especially long and painful day, he turned to me and my grandma, and with simplicity and sincerity, said, “I don’t know why I’m still here, but it’s taught me to love the Savior more because of how much he suffered for me.” I’m so grateful that I was able to be there and hear my grandpa’s testimony of the Savior. 

My mission has been anything but remarkable. I grew up hearing amazing mission stories, but my mission miracle is simply that I finished. I know that there are other missionaries and followers of Christ like me who have felt that they slipped through the cracks. Who fear that they will never be worthy enough or have enough faith to move the mountains in their lives. I have struggled with shame and doubt that has limited my ability to feel God’s love and to do His work. But I’ve learned that God accepts and uses our offerings, no matter how small. Nothing is wasted in His hands. When we offer our widows might,  he consecrates it. One evening when I was about to leave the care center, I looked across the hall from my grandpa’s room, and saw a woman weeping. My initial instinct was to give her privacy and I turned away. But after a moment, I felt strongly that I needed to go back and comfort her. I crossed the hall and timidly asked if she was okay. She seemed surprised, and I was worried she would tell me to go away. But instead, she welcomed me in. She told me that her mother was in the hospital dying but she couldn’t go see her because she had her hip replaced and she was in a lot of pain. I didn’t know how to comfort her, except to listen and let her cry. After we talked for a while, she told me that she had been praying for someone to come be with her. I am still humbled and full of gratitude that I listened to the spirit and was able to be the one to comfort her. 

Like I’ve said, most of my mission was mundane, and the miracles that I experienced aren’t noticeable to anyone else. But like the widows mite, I know my sacrifice was great to the Lord because of the change that it has made in my heart. 

• I have a testimony of my Heavenly Father’s plan. No matter how lost I feel I am, he is guiding me. He has guided me towards people who I needed to learn from and who I needed to love. 
• I have a testimony of and relationship with my Savior Jesus Christ that I didn’t have before. I know he has taken my sins, sorrows, and mistakes, and consecrated them for my gain.
• I have a testimony of his atonement. He suffered for me, and my sins have lost their permanence. 
• He bled for me, and died for me, so that I can be with the loved ones I’ve lost, again. 
• I have a testimony of my covenants, which cover me in my weakness.

• Even though at times I have felt unworthy, I know I am always worthy of my Savior. 
• Like Eve, I know that were it not for my mistakes, I wouldn’t know the joy of redemption that Jesus Christ offers me. 
• I’m thankful for the opportunity to have served, and to now say that  once I was a missionary. 

Graduations

Breanna Leigh Hurtado - Bachelor of Medical Laboratory Sciences BYU April 2023

David Arturo Hurtado - Bachelor of General Studies SUU April 2023

David Arturo Hurtado - Master of Interdisciplinary Studies at SUU February 2025

Kaerlig Troy Hurtado - Master of Public Health at BYU April 2025

Rainer Joshua Hurtado - Bachelor of Geography, minor in Environmental Studies with a GIS certificate at UVU 2025

2025 Christmas Letter from David Hurtado

Dear Friends and Family

When I think about the Christmas gifts of my youth, one stands out above all the others. In 1990 the Sony Discman was advertised on TV with a commercial set to Marvin Gaye’s 1971 song, “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology).” Though I wasn’t familiar with the song, I immediately knew two things: I loved the song, and I wanted a Sony Discman. Marvin’s buttersmooth voice singing “Oh mercy mercy me, things ain’t what they used to be” made for an effective ad. Digital music, after all, promised to revolutionize the experience of listening.  

I was just beginning to collect CD’s and only had a handful of discs, but I couldn’t wait to have that sweet digital music pumped directly into my head as I stormed the halls of Timpview High School wearing what could generously be described as a purse containing my Discman and a few discs. In fact I couldn’t even wait until school began. During Christmas break my friend Jason (who had also received a Discman) accompanied me to University Mall where we both wore our purses and strutted around feeling cool. Jason was listening to Journey’s Greatest Hits, while I was listening to Heaven or Las Vegas by the Cocteau Twins. (I can’t help but wonder if our music tastes could in any way have been predictive of the fact that Jason retired this year, and my retirement plan is life insurance. Still, I’d rather work myself to death than have to listen to Journey unironically.)

But back to Mercy Mercy Me. It turned out that the song wasn’t about buying into a new audio format. It was about environmental contamination, which is pretty heady stuff for Motown. The irony of that song being used to sell me a bunch of plastic objects that have long since gone to the landfill is not lost on me. It seems that the more closely you examine things, the more complicated they get. 

To illustrate, I’ll give some examples from our own experiences this year:

Let’s start with missionary work. Most kids contemplating missionary service assume that it will be a period of spiritual growth and wonderful experiences, and this is true. But what they can’t adequately prepare for is how painful it is to grow. Elizabeth knew that serving a mission would be hard, but she went anyway. She began the year in the Peru Lima Central Mission, where she had some very positive experiences before returning home to be a service missionary. Her service projects have included working at the church office building, working at Deseret Industries helping immigrants find work, and frequently proselyting with the full-time teaching missionaries. She also helps my parents a lot. She is doing a fine job and we are very proud of her.  All of these things are valuable gifts to the people she serves, yet still, as growth experiences tend to do, they push her out of her comfort zone.

In Davey’s case, he only has two semesters left at UVU, where he is pursuing an English degree. He also works at The Scooter Lounge and enjoys 3D modeling/printing in his spare time. He’s very active in his YSA ward and has a good group of friends. He also came to Italy with Kaerlig and I, and rode a Vespa through the insane chaos of Naples like a pro. He is a very talented writer and finished another book just last week. What you don’t see unless you look closer, is that being single is hard, dating is a blood sport, and trying to find a publisher for a book you have lovingly written makes getting rejected on Mutual look like child’s play.

Rainer just finished the last class of his bachelor’s degree in geography with a minor in environmental studies and graduates this month. He has accepted a position with Mountainland Association of Governments. Breanna is a very hard worker, keeping the lab running at the Timpanogos hospital and saving up money like a champ. These kids have done everything right and they want to buy a house and start a family but things are far more challenging today than they were for my generation. I’ve heard some people claim that affordability is a made up word. I’m not sure that those people have ever tried to save for a downpayment on a $500K 70 year-old “starter home,” much less make the payments.

Kaerlig graduated from BYU with a Master of Public Health. In addition to still working at our store, she has begun working for a nonprofit called Yapay Bolivia. She completed her 1000th hike to the Y just the other day, raising money for Yapay and for a Bolivian friend in need. Not bad for a 50 year old lady. Kaerlig traveled to Bolivia in June where she was greeted with warm hugs and bright smiles from orphans who Yapay serves. When you look closer, you learn that these beautiful children have witnessed and suffered terrible things. One only needs to turn on the news to be reminded how cruel the world can be, especially to women and children.

As for me, I received a Master of Interdisciplinary Studies from SUU. I now apply an interdisciplinary approach to changing oil on scooters belonging to the children of the doctors, lawyers and football coaches I went to high school with. But the best part of my week is teaching ESL classes at a community center near our store. I am so inspired by the courage and optimism of my students, all of whom come from difficult circumstances. Yet they treat me like a hero just for helping with their English.

A highlight of the year was a trip to Italy in May. We rode scooters in 4 cities (Rome, Formia, Naples and Florence), as well as seeing Pompeii, the Amalfi Coast, the Vespa museum, and much more. We also ate a truckload of gelato.  Italy is a beautiful country, and seeing it by Vespa was a special treat. Looking closer though, there were some disturbing things. A taxi driver casually mentioned that Mussolini did a lot of good things, and in Rome we saw graffiti that said, “Mussolini aveva ragione” (Mussolini was right). And here I thought that we were safely at a point in history where the idea that fascism was bad is uncontroversial.

See, when we zoom in close it becomes clear that everything is complicated. How can we possibly have any hope at all? To Marvin Gaye, it seemed like the world was ending way back in 1971. Somehow we’re still here, yet we still have huge problems. We still need songs like Mercy Mercy Me, and we need songs like Wholy Holy, which says “Oh, wholy holy, Oh Lord, we can conquer hate forever, believe me.” 

We need Jesus more each day. Heck, maybe we even need a little Journey. With that in mind, I want to close by unironically saying that we hope your year was good, that next year is better, and that you don’t stop believin’.  Everybody hold onto that feelin’.  

Merry Christmas.

David Hurtado and family

_____________________________

 1. The Sony Discman was a portable CD player with wired headphones.  CD’s are an obsolete music format in which music was stored on shiny plastic discs the size of a dessert plate.

26th Anniversary

 

26 years

“See, we don’t love like flowers with only one season behind us; when we love, a sap older than memory rises in our arms…”

Rainer Maria Rilke

2024 - Christmas Letter

Christmas 2024

Dear Friends and Family,

I’m writing this letter having just left our daughter Ellie at the Missionary Training Center this afternoon. Forgive me if the page looks like it’s been wept on.

What an adventure we’ve been on as a family these past 25 years! From our marriage, as two dumb 24-year-old kids, to having three beautiful babies who turned into three sweet little kids whose pictures decorate the ornaments of our Christmas tree, then turned into teenagers, and now adults it’s been a wonderful experience– and it feels today as though that adventure has concluded in a way, and a new adventure has just begun. Our dear baby girl is on her way to Peru to be a missionary. It’s a milestone for her, but also a milestone for the whole family—a bridge we cross together, unable to see the other side clearly.

(Does anybody know if nostalgia is a terminal illness? I might need an ambulance.)

In light of this huge milestone, the other events of the year seem trivial, but here’s the rundown:

Kaerlig is 3/4ths of the way through her Master of Public Health program at BYU and will graduate in April. In August, she and Ellie went to Bolivia to help a US-based charitable organization called Yapay evaluate programs it funds there. It was a wonderful experience in which they both got COVID and subsequently coughed all over me when I picked them up at the airport. So of course Davey and I also got it. It was the first time for all of us. I guess public health professionals don’t practice what they preach? I don’t know. The entire US healthcare system is about to be helmed by a human marionette whose strings are pulled by a brain-eating worm, so maybe we should get used to these kinds of shenanigans. But America, we had a good run.

Rainer and Breanna are doing very well. Breanna is literally keeping the lab running at Mountain View Hospital in Payson, doing everything from light refrigeration system maintenance to handling the most foul and toxic of human secretions and parasites (making sure, of course, that all samples are labeled with the patients names). She also earned her second-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do this year, so. . . she literally kicks butts and takes names in an official capacity.

Meanwhile, Rainer is making great progress with his studies at UVU. In line with his passion for the environment, he did a summer internship with Americorps doing wetland restoration projects along the lower Provo and Jordan rivers. For legal reasons I should refrain from saying the following, but it bears mentioning that if you are considering building a bunch of McMansions on a formerly pristine wildland, think again, the dude is about to snap.

Davey is also studying at UVU. In addition to keeping up with his class work, he has written a science fiction novel he can be proud of, and he’s working on another. He also keeps his 3D printers running nonstop and has learned to use CAD to design the objects he prints. His room is full of dragons and all kinds of whimsical creatures. He has also been able to make specialty tools and various scooter parts for me whenever the need arises. He still lives at home, the last remaining obstacle standing between Kaerlig and me and an empty nest. But we are in no hurry for him to leave; we love having him at home with us. Besides, I lived with my parents right up until the day I got married, and look how I turned out.

Before leaving on her mission, Ellie made a long list of things she wanted to accomplish. In short order, she did them all, including running a half-marathon. She was also accepted to the Bachelor of Fine Arts program at BYU this year and received a scholarship. You should know that Ellie is very prepared to be a missionary save in one capacity only, and that’s her inability to use other people’s toilets. In fact, even her own toilet at home was suspect. You know those disposable paper seat covers they have in upscale truck stops and motels? She made her own for personal home use. I don’t know what combination of arts and crafts and mental gymnastics it will take for her to survive Peruvian plumbing, but where there’s a will there’s a way.

As for me, I had anticipated finishing my capstone project for my Masters degree earlier this year, and I even walked at graduation, but I got stuck in a procrastination loop this semester and now it’s looking like I’ll finish in April. As part of my coursework, I taught ESL classes and also wrote a couple of short stories that I’m happy with. If you are interested in reading some totally non-autobiographical fiction about traumatized young men trying to come to grips with their dysfunctional fathers, let me know.

This might be my most conventional Christmas letter yet. The writing process has moved in the opposite direction of my usual custom. Instead of starting off with an irreverent and snarky diatribe, then paring it down to something marginally acceptable, I actually started with a very sentimental and ordinary bunch of treacle, and then I had to work to add some edge to it. I’m sorry. Maybe in about four or five years I’ll be back to my usual sarcastic self, but I don’t have the energy right now.

Merry Christmas. From the Hurtado’s

25th Anniversary

 25 years and counting.

“I am so glad you are here. It helps me realize how beautiful my world is.”

Rainer Maria Rilke

2023 - Christmas Letter by David Hurtado

 

Assignment: Christmas Letter.  100 possible points

Purpose: Write a letter relating the years’ events and expressing an appropriate holiday message.  Practice the writing revision process while demonstrating your knowledge of creative writing fundamentals, specifically image, energy, tension, pattern, insight. Also look for the genre-specific concerns mentioned in chapter three.

Format and Requirements: MLA.  500 words.  

Dear Professor,

As you know, creative writing is part of my “choose-your-own-adventure” masters program, so I should have no problem completing this assignment.  However, I am writing to protest it anyway, for the following reasons:

First, nobody really cares about these letters.  Those who read them are close enough that they already know what’s in them.  Everybody else either throws them straight in the trash, or displays them with the others for a few weeks as a means of demonstrating how many friends they have.

Second, I’m very busy.  Not only am I three fifths of the way through the aforementioned Masters program, but my wife Kaerlig is wrapping up her first semester of a Masters of Public Health at BYU, a school which I’m sure you’re aware, has elevated bureaucracy to an art form.  In addition, our three children are also in college, working hard, and our daughter-in-law is wrapping up her internship and starting a career in Medical Laboratory Science.  

Apart from the educational demands on our time, we still run our business, The Scooter Lounge, where we continue to rank among the top Vespa dealers in the country.  This is a full-time job in itself!

To bolster my argument, my wife says that I could mention (though I don’t see how it could possibly be relevant), that she is still an ordinance worker at the temple and she will have hiked the “Y” 600 times by the end of the year.  Perhaps this kind of brown-nosing works for BYU students, but obviously, with you being an SUU professor, there’s no reason this should have any bearing on my being excused from this assignment.  

As an alternative to this project, I would be happy to do any of the following:

• Write an essay about seeing U2 at the Sphere in Las Vegas, and how though a very cool experience, it really drove home the idea that we live in a simulated world, Vegas being the disturbing epicenter of Uncanny Valley.

• Write a creative nonfiction piece about our trip to Peru during the violent protests that took place in January, seeing Cusco and Lima embroiled in a present conflict with roots in the distant past, and how that conflict resides in my own blood.

• Write a fictional short story about a boy named for a German poet who uses skills gained in pursuit of a Geography/GIS degree to scour the deserts of southern Utah in search of an alleged buried alien ship, only to find like-minded camaraderie, and the true value of his education.  As a companion piece, I would write about a laboratory scientist who finds that her new black belt comes in handy when all the machines in the lab become sentient and try to take over the hospital.

• Write a novel about a boy named for his dad who chooses not to follow his fathers vocation, instead working with troubled kids at a middle school while majoring in English and teaching himself CAD and 3D printing.  Years later he realizes he was just like his dad after all.

• Write a poem about a girl who is named after the singer in the Cocteau Twins, but instead adores Taylor Swift.  She’s an art student at a good school who excels in everything she tries, but who (like so many young women), wrestles with insecurity.  (This would be a real tear-jerker about contrasts between perceived mediocrity and true excellence– very relatable!)

I hope that one of these alternatives would be acceptable.  If not, I would even write a religious short story about Christ and eternal families in the style of O’Henry, in which the main characters sacrifice something of great value only to find that in doing so, they possess it all the more.  Anything but a trite, formulaic Christmas letter.

Sincerely,

David Hurtado and family.

Christmas 2023