It's hard to believe that I spoke with
some of you just a few days ago. For those of you who I didn't talk to
I'll just fill you in a bit.
Because it was Christmas week and not a lot of people wanted to be visited, we visited EVERYONE, haha! We took bags comprised of popcorn, approximately 25 melty chocolate covered pretzels and mini marshmallows. We pawned them off on members, people in the streets, and even on one humble and unsuspecting southern dragon-footed gentleman. (That is to say, that literally his toe nails were long and green as we have always dreamed a dragon's talons would be). He was so full of Christmas spirit and love that instead of the usual Confederate rankings, he insisted on a Christmas hug. I being a wise sister missionary (and for sanitary reasons) kept my distance, but poor my dear little companion was not so lucky, although she refused his hug he grabbed her hand and gave it a big grubby kiss!
More kisses followed that night, at the
quaint home of Hermana Lohrmann. We ate empenadas, flan, and apple strudel with
a divorced sister and her mom. It was simple and sweet. We didn't want to leave
them alone, so we played "No comas a Pedro" (aka Don't eat Pete) and sang
Christmas hymns together. Sorry, Family. Best Christmas Eve dinner ever.
When we got home, a Christmas miracle was waiting for us - Pizza! We had a HUGE box full of freshly made and frozen and massive pizzas from The Pie in SLC! Thank you, to Hermana Paulsen's brother. We will now return home as large up recognizable blobs. :)
Christmas Day we ate lunch with a crowd
of Brazilians. When we arrived, samba music was filling the air. One of them, a
handsome and talented banjo player, played for us poolside while we waited for
other people to show up. We conversed, tried our best to learn the common lingo,
and ate Brazilian BBQ with cheesy garlic mashed potatoes. For dessert: cinnamon
sugar papaya. Have I mention that Brazilians make the best food?
After that we rushed over to Margaritas and Sergio's to share a Christmas message. When we got there we shared some Hillshire Farms cheese and sausage with bread and painted our nails with Margarita. After that we got to call home! It was so great. I loved talking to you all.
We ended the night by going to President Gazziro's house and sharing the video He is the Gift with some non-member friends of theirs from Argentina. They were so sweet and gave us two boxes of chocolate, yup I'm still not eating chocolate so with the extra box of chocolates we snuck back over to Margaritas and Sergio's gave them the chocolate and heart attacked their house mwahahaha.
We went on our first exchanges as STLs
(this is the sixth time for me but the first time for Hermana P) to Venice
ITALY! It was a long flight but writing this email in a gondola is definitely
worth it! I wish. We actually just went to Venice, Florida. Hermana P went with
Sister Skeem to their area to do some family history missionary work while
Sister Johnson and I remained in Sarasota. We had a blast and taught a ton of
people.
One experience that will always stick with me is going over to one of our members homes, asking her for referrals and then watching her pound on her neighbors garage door to introduce him to us. It was great! She said, "This is the Lords work, so I'm going to knock hard!" I will forevermore "knock hard" and try harder because of that woman.
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| The District |
We've tried lots of new approaches on
missionary work this past week. We did caroling with members (so much fun), just
asking for referrals from every breathing creature, and going to yard
sales.
Our week was full of laughs. Mainly due to the fact that I was a little deaf, haha! The other day instead of hearing the Spanish equivalent of, "All of you are together" I heard, "All of you are a cult." I ended up asking our investigator if she really thought we were a cult. Hahahaha! Also Hermana Paulsen wanted to know why the phrase, "He is hot" doesn't translate and our investigators spent 20 minutes trying to figure it out.
For Christmas we went to everyone's home and made ornaments with them and asked them what they were going to give Jesus this year.
There you have it, our goofy Christmas week. We had so much fun and really enjoyed the spirit of Christmas. I hope that you all enjoyed it too and will continue to celebrate the Lord in your daily lives. He makes every minute of being on the earth so much easier. May you all have a great new year!
Con mucho amor y cariños,
Hermana Mathis
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