Samambaia - Week 13

Hey Mom! So yeah, I wish we could have talked a lot longer too, it was the shortest hour of my entire life I think. What the heck...anyways, yeah it was awesome! :) It's so fun to see you guys. My Christmas was just beginning, hahaha.

I got 3 packages, plus some stuff from Elder Hesselgesser's mom. She sent me a tie (awesome) and some chocolates. I got the year package and the Xmas package, and one from Cindy Hopkins which I haven't gotten a picture of yet, unfortunately. But they were GREAT!!! I loved them so much! Currently I'm just working on the year package, getting the starbursts/sour bears out of the way. So tasty, good grief :) Anyways, thank you so so so so so much! It was so great, it really made it feel like Christmas. I'm trying to make this last though, although I do have a lot of stuff to get through before I have to move houses again hahaha. So maybe I'll end up getting sick, although it'd be so worth it. So thank you so much!

Christmas morning we went early to Santos for the conference. They fed us a tasty breakfast, then there was the conference part, where Sister and Presidente Cabral talked about some cool stuff, the Christmas symbols and all that. One of the symbols that she taught us was about the Christmas dinner, how it helps to remind us of the Atonement. Because before the dinner, there's all this craziness and mess going on, and everything goes wrong that could possibly go wrong, but then everyone sits down to eat and it's just all perfect, family being together, and all that. And nobody even remembers (too much :) ) about the craziness of the preparation. So that's how the Atonement works. In our lives there's a ton of wrong stuff that goes on and we make a lot of mistakes and such, but then looking back all that's left is the nice dinner with everyone being together and talking and laughing. It cuts out all the little bad details, and just leaves what really matters most.

And then we had lunch, which was incredible! It was darn tasty and super fancy. She spent a lot of money on it...rapaz [boy]...and then after lunch there was the Christmas show! Which various missionaries put together little skits or stuff like that. I would have done a solo, but Sister Cabral cut the show short to not keep us too late. :( Oh well, I accompanied an Elder who was going home on a vocal solo, and I also I participated in our zone's skit. I was a grumpy Christmas tree :) And my companion was the happy tree, always trying to get me to like christmas and stuff and i was always smacking his ornaments off him and talking trash about the Christmas music and stuff, it was pretty funny :D People liked it. And then we went home and opened presents and stuff :) It was pretty cool. Weird to think that it's almost 2016 now...what the heck...and it's the year that I'll be home...aghh. Too weird. But yeah, that was my Christmas!

Anyways, the best parts of Christmas were the Skype and the packages, they were so nice :) And now we're back to work. It's been super hot during the days, but then always rains at like 5ish. We actually went quite a few days without buying umbrellas, so we just always got soaked. But now we bought some super classy (and sturdy, I hope) umbrellas for just 25 reais. So it's better now. But yeah, it's been so stinkin hot. It's miserable most days :) But I'm doing okay! Nothing else major happened, hopefully nothing too crazy happens for New Year's here. Their Xmas fireworks were pathetic, and their idea of celebrating is just getting drunk and playing terrible music really loudly. But whatever, to each their own. I can't wait to have a cold American Christmas next year :)

But anyways, Happy New Year to y'all! :D

Christmas Eve

Samambaia - Week 12

Alright, I'll try to think of some interesting things to say [when we skype]...I might be speaking a lot of Portuglês, just so you know :) Did I really say wholes [instead of holes]? That's embarrassing...but don't judge me, they sound the same. That's probably something I mess up most on...the words that sound the same but are spelled different. 

Anyways. Jonathan didn't get baptized, he was working on the day that we had planned with him. So now we will probably help him to be a little more excited and do the baptism in the coming weeks, whatever's best for him/the Lord. It's the hardest part probably. You do all this planning for a person, have such high hopes/expectations, and then they just quit for stupid reasons. Probably how God feels a lot of the time, actually. Except He's got an eternal perspective, so He probably handles it a bit better :)

I made the salted caramel cookies for my 1 year, they were the BOMB! :) We didn't end up going to the churrascaria, because we wanted more time to practice piano/violin (we did an awesome thing for the stake choir presentation thing, I'll try to send a video next week or sometime soon), so we just bought pizza, ice cream (floresta negra, da hora! :) [black forest, oh yeah!]) and juice, and then practiced.

The weather has been scorching, it's miserable. Luckily, it rains fairly often, although sometimes that just makes it even more humid.

People celebrate Christmas here normally. I think. There are lights and (American) songs, and Santa and everything. Pretty standard, except it doesn't feel like Christmas because it's so hot.

So, the secretary (sp?) called this last week and said that the Correio nabbed one of my packages and is holding it ransom...for like 700 reais!!!! Which I think is 175 dollars, something like that. So...should I pick it up today? The price will get higher every day, and I have until the 8th of January to get it. Do you guys know which package this might be? is it worth paying 175 to get it? I just don't know, and I don't know what to do about it. If it's worth getting it, could you guys please put more money on my card? :) It can be from my account, I'm okay with using my own money, if it'll be worth it. If I don't get it, they'll send it back to the States I guess. Help! :)

Até Quinta-feira! [Until Thursday!] :D

Samambaia - Week 11

So with the transfer, me and Elder Hesselgesser stayed here! And Elder Medrano from my group is coming to replace Elder Chagas, so we'll be together for our 1 year! :) That's pretty much it though. Although, we are no longer the district leaders! Which is a huge relief. Only zone leaders, which I'm super happy for.

Yeah, thanks for the other shoes :) Yep, I switch shoes after church and then use the sturdy ones for the whole week. Actually, one pair of them has two little wholes in the leather, one where it meets with the rubber and one in the leather (or whatever it is). But it's okay, it's a missionary battle scar! I just can't walk in water any more :D And don't worry, there's plenty of shoe people (can't remember the name) to fix them if they actually start to come apart.

I already emailed Dad about the Skype...let me know! We have one more p-day to email too, so it'll be fine. SO EXCITED! :) Agh!

Alright...I'll try to explain the pics. One of them is SKITTLES! Which arrived in our lovely supermarket! So I've been kinda addicted. They're about 4 reais I think for a package that size, so...1 dollar. I think that's pretty cheap. I'm trying not to buy too many though, hahaha :)

The McDonald's was AMAZING! :) I had an Angus Bacon, and Murilo also bought us Flurries! So I had an M&M one. Everybody knew that I worked there, they asked if it was the same. And it is pretty much the same, except here they sell maracuja juice and grape and mango as well, which is cool. And some other stuff, the Flurries are better here.

And then to try and thank Murilo, I finally made the Snickerdoodles that Grandma/Grandpa sent! I did eat several before, though :) They turned out super tasty actually! I'll make the salted caramel ones soon. But yeah, I only burned about 6-7 of them, because of our stupid oven :( But a lot were left over. Anyways, darn tasty. And Joyce, Murilo's wife, LOVED them! :D Got to love good ol' American cookies. Nothing in this country compares... :)

I think that was really it though for this week. Ah, the assistants did a division with us actually. On Saturday. Which went okay. We were just in a trio. I don't think there was anything else though. So yeah, I'm doing great! I'm going to the Ponto da Motorista after LAN, which is a churrascaria [steak house] :) I'm super excited. So pics will be next week! Anyways, I think that's it for me! :)

Samambaia - Week 10

Just a heads up, this dumb LAN house doesn't let us use USB or anything, so it'll be another drought of pics. Although, you're probably used to that, haha :)

I always get your letters :) I think that I've become famous in the mission for getting so many letters...which is a good thing :) It just means that you're a loving mom! Maybe a little crazy, but that's okay :)

As far as supplies in general, I thought I'd give you an update...I switched to the other shoes (about a month ago, actually). And they're awesome! They're comfortable and super chique [chic] :) I like 'em a lot. Also, I washed my bag, cause it had gotten fairly fedorento [stinky] :) just in the washing machine actually, which happily didn't break anything.

I'm sorry you guys got sick, that's not fun :( I've been pretty healthy actually. There's a thing on the mission...when you work, you don't get sick. If you get sick, it's cause you're not working :) Because the Lord protects us from that kind of thing. So I've been good :)

The biggest blessing this week...I'm not sure. There's been a lot of stuff. I guess it wasn't a super good week, some difficult stuff happened. But we got a rapaz [boy] ready for baptism on Sunday, but he wanted his mom to be there so he'll wait until Saturday. But yeah, in general, it was okay. I guess the biggest blessing would be that. And in general, being with Elder Hesselgesser :) I guess one thing is that I've been sleeping super well. Which is always nice :)

So for Skype, I know that it will either happen on Christmas Eve or the 26th, I'm not sure which. Maybe we have a choice...so send me your preference! Because Christmas Day we have a mission conference. So yeah, one day before or after. I'll go to a member's house again, but I'm not sure who. I think there'll be a transfer next week, so I'm hoping I don't get transferred! That'd be lame. But yeah, I'll keep you guys updated on that. I'm so excited :D Only two more weeks! Ish.

So, cool stuff that happened this week...I'm not sure. It was kinda a normal week actually, which was nice. Just more zone leader duties...I opened the pickles and almost died from sheer joy :) Um...not sure what else hahaha. Really nothing of note happened. Sorry haha. We'll have a baptism this week. We're teaching Jonathan, who will get baptized, he was taught by missionaries and almost baptized in Pernambuco, but he moved to good ol' PG right before, so now we get to baptize him! Also, we're teaching Vanderlei, who is an awesome guy. He's an ex-drug-trafficker, but he really wants to change and he's super humble. He's just struggling with Word of Wisdom a little bit. And I think that's pretty much it. We're teaching a lot of people. So yeah, that's my week update.

I had one thing that I wanted to ask for...in the next package, whenever it is. ASAP!!! :) No, just kidding. The sooner, the better though :D I've been doing some cubing, and I've got it down to 35ish seconds on a good run, and sub-30 on a really good one. So I would really like a super nice speed cube :) Also, I would really like it if you could put together all (if possible, I'm not sure) of the MoTab songs where they're singing just the normal hymns from the hymnal. I miss them a lot, and it would be super awesome! I don't know if they're free or anything, but that would be so awesome. Thanks :) Sorry I'm being needy this week, but...what can I say. The Christmas spirit :) Anyways, thank you so much for everything!