Monday, January 7, 2013

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (Dec. 31)

Can you believe its gonna be 2013 here in a few hours?????? NOPE. cant believe it.
 
 Well. Lots of stuff happened in the last couple weeks..... we finally found a lan house that is OPEN on new years eve, but it is gonna close here in a little bit, so this´ll have to be quick.
 
Firstly, Christmas here was good! A little hotter than I´m used to, but whatever. We got to have a multi-zone celebration the week before christmas, and our district got to go the temple as well, and it was AWESOME. My first time going to the temple since I left the MTC..... about 8 months now, so I really enjoyed it! 
 
Me and Sister Paixão at the christmas multi-zone

temple!!

SPOKANE-IANS in my zone!! Elder Sands and Elder McLane
 
Christmas eve me and my comp. had a little dinner of mini-pizzas, pastels and chocolate on the floor. And since my companion is WONDERFUL, it was good. She wanted to stay up until midnight to see the fireworks..... I may or may not have crashed at about 11.... haha. But I woke up when the ENTIRE CITY started setting off fireworks at midnight. Dont know how Santa visits anyone in Brasil--- nobody ever goes to sleep on christmas eve!! 
 
Our christmas eve FEAST

NATAL (christmas in portuguese) in CHOCOLATE!!! ( a wonderful lady in our ward gave us two boxes of chocolate the week before christmas......mmmmmm.)
 
Christmas day was pretty normal--- study time in the morning, lunch with members.... and THE BEST PRESENT EVER of talking to you all on skype!! It was soooo great to see you all!! Thanks so much!! =]
I felt bad because my companion only got to talk to her mom for about 5 minutes...... Thanks for talking with her--- she loves you guys.
 
After christmas, we worked our butts off. Really. And it was an AWESOME week. Just flew by! Let me tell you some of the miracles real quick:
1) we were able to find people, at home, not partying and not traveling the days after christmas this week....
2) The fix-it guys were able to fix our shower!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOO! The power may or may not have gone out imediately afterwards..... but that is besides the point. haha
3) Thursday, we had an area-wide power outage that lasted all afternoon and evening. It rained a TON, really hard... some hail and everything, so it must have knocked out some power line or something.... We got a little nervous trying to figure out what we would do for our english class with no power.... But we went to the chapel anyways, and a BUNCH of people still came! We started out with a little light from the windows, but that didnt last too long..... but for some weird reason, everyone wanted to stay and practice english IN THE DARK. hahah. I couldnt even do a real lesson or use the book or anything--- cause there was no light. I used a student´s cell phone to light up the board every once and a while when I wrote a word, and we just practiced pronunciation.... For an hour and a half! And everyone wanted to STAY. hahaha. I guess our class must be a lot cooler than I thought.
4) when we left english class and locked up the chapel, the entire neighborhood was still pitch black.... The SECOND that we opened the door and entered our apartment building, BOOM "let there be light!!". It was like magic!
5) Saturday, a girl from São Paulo came to spend the new year with her aunts family in our ward..... and for some miracle, she wanted to work with us ALL DAY on saturday. WOOO!! Turns out, I met this girl---Maxiny, in the MTC, my last p-day! And she wrote me a couple letters afterwards.... And now we met up AGAIN, when I actually can speak portuguese, and she got to help us teach all day. It was way cool.
6) Sunday, we had a baptism! Nathalia, is the older sister of a girl that was baptized the transfer before I got here.......... Sister Paixao and her companion taught their family for that entire transfer, but Nathalia never wanted to get baptized...... was scared of being baptized. Since then, she has been coming to church EVERY SUNDAY, started working on her personal progress and is always at the activities at the chapel. But every time we talked with her, she still didnt want to get baptized. This week, in our district meeting the our leaders asked about her and her family and decided to do her baptismal interveiw and talk with her and just see if she was ready for baptism. When the elders went there to talk to her, she told them how she and her sister are reading the book of mormon together every night!! ahhhh. And she decided that she wanted to be baptized finally! So sunday afternoon, she was baptized along with an 8 year old girl from the ward. It was great, cause there was a ton of people in the chapel to support them and we had a little party with cake and soda afterwards. WOO. =]
  
The baptism---- Jussara and NATHALIA!!!!
 
We have transfers this week on wednesday........... Sister Paixao is leaving, and I´m staying. AHHHHHH. So now I have to know our area, all our investigators and not get lost!!! hahah. It´ll be interesting for the first little bit. And I´ll miss my little angel of a companion. 
 
Love you all so much!!!
Happy new year!!
 
Sister Ward
 

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