Friends and family,
I took a lot of time sending 19 photos so this’ll be a bit short.
We tracked into Santa. But this Santa doesn’t speak English, and he couldn’t seem to make out the words quite right, so Hairy Kristmann, everybody! Let’s talk about Christmas in Uruguaiana: They celebrate it a little differently. The presents are opened on Christmas Eve, and they wait until midnight, where they commence binge drinking and blowing stuff up. Fireworks are expensive, so they just use bombs. This makes for a rather sad day of proselyting on the 26th, because many people are very much hung over.
On "a véspera de natal" (Christmas Eve) we ate with Ed and Jussara, two members known for their good cooking skills. They had some good stuff, which we ate first. But the cake thing went untouched. Let me tell you why. It was soggy bread, topped with some weird chicken sauce, layered a few times, and "frosted" with mayo and pickles and chilled to 40 degrees. Noticing that the cake was untouched, Jussara offered some to us. So we had to oblige. I pulled the "I’m full, so just a little bit" routine. She must not have understood me. So me and my companion looked at our plates, and began to weep spiritually. Then my companion does something very evil. He notices that there is no more juice on the table, so he looks at me, smiles, and pours my glass into his. I have to get him back for that one. So I had to suffer through that one, without help.
Then on Christmas, we got to sleep in. Oh my, that felt divine. I hadn’t slept past 6:29 since September. Then we ate ice cream, visited some members, ate lunch with Inácio (which I heard is FB friends with Conner, apparently) and I got to skype my family. I was SO nervous, because storm clouds were gathering, and the internet fails really easily here. If it rains or the wind blows, the internet doesn’t work. Believe me, it took me three tries to send this very email. But, I got to talk, problem free, with my family, which was AWESOME. I loved it. It went by too quickly. I learned, although my Portuguese is a little awkward, my English is a little worse.
Then, the unthinkable happened. I logged off of skype, and right then and there, Elder Molina and I were offered, I kid you not, THE SAME DARN CAKE that we had the night prior.
OH! I’m better. I was sick for 5 days. But I’m better.
We got back in contact with Larissa. It’s a bigger story than a "spirit break." I knew there was more to the story, so I just told you what I understood. But let me tell you the basics of what I know now. Larissa dated a member. But he ended up giving her the cold shoulder, and she still really likes him. Nevertheless, she is actually interested very much in the church, and has been studying even though we haven’t been talking with her. Get this - she is now in HELAMAN in the Book of Mormon. That’s in about 3 weeks, I think. Maybe longer. IDK. Time flies by. Anyways, she has a solid testimony, and we are CERTAIN that she is investigating for the right reason. However, her father is not. So it’s complicated. More on this next week.
No baptisms, unfortunately, It rained again. (Everyone has to walk to church so when it rains, many investigators don’t attend)
More on this next week. OOH IMPORTANT. WRITE LETTERS TO MY URUGUAIANA ADRESS. If it shows up in the mission home, we wait until the next MISSION CONFERENCE to receive it, which happens like twice a year. So luckily, we had one on the 23rd where I got my package, and 6 other letters, 4 of which were from G+G Wassom, let them know thanks and that I love them. Love you all! Hope you liked the pics!
E. Wassom
Elder Mitchell Wassom
Caixa Postal 179
Uruguaiana RS
97501-970
BRASIL
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