1 Family, 2 countries, 2 miracles, Same time.

Dear Family and Friends, My heart is full. My brother is a married man. Saturday was just an all around good day. Brother got married, Luis Gabriel got baptized, that’s my first one out on the mission, I learned that I would be able to skype home on Christmas, to the family, I also learned that I don’t receive just 12 dollars a week for my groceries, so ignore the letter that says that I only get 12 dollars a week. Also, I’m glad Rachel got my letter! Anytime you receive a hand-written letter by me, tell me you got it. I still haven’t gotten the Christmas package, but I hope it gets here. I doubt they sent it to the moon! Portuguese update: I can speak just fine, and understand. I am still not FLUENT, but I can work my way through it pretty well if I try and think. So I will start out by talking about Luis' baptism. Luis Gabriel was baptized on Saturday. He’s the gurí that is just a ham. He’s a character. I had the honor of baptizing him, so my first baptism was actually mine. It occurred to me, that our whole family (minus sis) very well could have been wearing white at the same time. This choked me up a bit. Frankly, Christmastime is getting to me a little. I am having a few saudades (homesickness)... I miss y’all a bit. But it’s not distracting the work. What got me the most, though was the Christmas devotional. When the choir sang "O Come, All Ye Faithful," I remembered my Junior Christmas concert. That still was the best memory of choir I ever had-singing that song. But anyways, Gabriel said "I feel all happy and stuff" and he described the spirit he felt as "fuzzy". Interesting, but I’m just relaying the facts. It was a great event. Thayná was there, so he was setting a good example for her. She actually has recommitted herself to being a member, so we´re all happy for that. Bernardo was baptized on Sunday, by his father, which was awesome to see Eder, a previous alcoholic, worthy to baptize his son. As a side note (I have a lot of those) the dogs here are so dumb. I miss Bella. She’s a good dog. I do know that they don’t stop barking ever, and they love to get their dirty, flea-ridden selves all over you, and they love to make new dogs in plain sight in the middle of your lessons. And they're ugly. Haha, now that we're on the subject of things that annoy me, my family will tell you that I have some serious pet peeves. The people of Uruguaiana are the best, really, but they also are professionals, capitalizing on my biggest 4 pet peeves. Starting with mild and getting to unacceptable :) 1.) Before singing any song or hymn, there is no pitch given, instead, there are just 12 keys being sung. Or chanted, really. 2) People like to talk. That is fine. But my patience is tested when there is a huge group of people trying to get out of a crowded location, and people decide to talk in the doorway. lol 3) This is mildly unacceptable. Choristers - make sure you direct your choirs at a tempo that is in the designated range. The hymns here are slower than I have ever heard before. And, the most unacceptable, punishable by Chinese water torture 4) in a large group, people love to take photos with many cameras at the same time, without warning. So no one has a picture where everyone is looking at it. There is no logic in this- nobody wins. Seriously. Just make the world a better place and don’t do it. Also, this will be my last letter until the skype session, the President commanded that next Monday, no one will get on the internet. Here’s something cool. I always wondered what happened to all the perfectly good, "outdated" game systems. They get sent to underprivileged kids. So kids down here have a PS2. That is the "in" thing here. There are some old games that I remember and smile about, but here’s the kicker, THEY STILL MAKE GAMES FOR THE PS2. The new soccer game for 2015 just came out. I was surprised to see it in low-def. Can’t wait till Natal. So excited to talk to yall. Proud of you, Blake and Francesca. Love, Elder Wassom