Allison,
We hope your Christmas was wonderful. Did you get to Skype with your family? We Skyped with your family but it didn't work too well so we talked on the phone for most of our conversation. It was fun to see everyone even if we could not hear them!
We had a good Christmas, very quiet, except for Christmas Day from two to six when we had four elders here using our Skype. So we had three different elders talking with us for four hours! We learned a lot about them. It was fun but tiring.
I went to a Relief Society party the Saturday before Christmas and brought two gifts, one for another RS sister and two for the elders which I thought the RS was gathering. I found out that I was wrong about the elder gifts (my Spanish is frequently mistaken!) so I brought home the ties and socks that we bought for the elders. We had a white elephant gift exchange with the missionaries in our district the Tuesday before Christmas and we gave the socks away with some caramels. Unfortunately an hermana selected our bag and got the men's socks!!! But an elder got a ladies wallet so I think there was some exchanging going on! Grandpa got two wide-toothed combs which got a laugh! I got a "family de oro" which turned out to be three chocolate Santas dressed up like a mother, father, and son, so I lucked out! One elder got a pair of crocs, but this missionary is 6' 7" tall so the crocs didn't fit! Another elder got a large rock! (This was a white elephant gift so a rock fit the definition.) It was fun and some gifts were very funny.
I kept the ties we bought and gave them to Grandpa for Christmas! So everything was good. He gave me a necklace which I really like. But that was all so unwrapping gifts did not take long nor was there a high level of excitement and surprise! It was good.
I actually found a small roast (meat) that we bought for Christmas dinner -- our first roast since we got here. It was delicious! I haven't figured out the meat here so we don't eat much other than chicken, pork chops and hamburger -- all visually identifiable! Karen and Susan sent us a package for Christmas with some things that we don't find here so we had bacon (from a plastic package, not raw) with our eggs Christmas morning! Delish! It is the small things that please in a foreign country!
We are currently without a car due to a minor fender bender that the insurance company has not resolved yet, so it is hard to get around to do our visiting. Today we did a house inspection and attended sacrament meeting in San Pablo and we went by bus! There are fewer buses on Sunday so we ended up waiting for 30 minutes and then boarded a bus to Osorno (which is twice as far away as San Pablo) but we got off at the side of the road at the edge of San Pablo. This is how it is done in our mission. You get on a bus that might be going where you want to go or it might be going beyond where you want to go and you get off when you need to. So we walked to the hermanas' house and did the inspection we needed to do and then walked to Church. The way home we had a 30 minute wait for a bus to La Union (where we live) and the bus driver left us off on the side of the road that was near our house. Tomorrow we go to Rio Bueno for two house inspections and a meeting with the family history director to create an agenda for our next meeting. Without a car we try to do at least two different activities per bus ride! The ride to Rio Bueno will end at the bus terminal and we will have to walk from there to Hermana Figeroa's house for the agenda and then go next door for hermanas' house inspection! They happen to live next door to each other. (When Grandpa called Hermana Figeroa to make an appointment with her, she said that she knew we were coming to Rio Bueno because she had talked with the hermanas at church.) After the hermanas' house inspection, we will take a collective to the elders' house for that inspection, then a collectivo back to the terminal for the bus ride home. Our missionaries smile when we tell them that, yes, we walk to the meetings at the El Centro chapel (about a half hour) but will be taking home a collectivo (a kind of taxi that is cheap -- $1 per person -- but only goes to certain neighborhoods). We are willing to walk down the high hill that is between our house and the chapel before the meeting but not willing to walk up it after the meeting! Transportation is pretty good here if you only need to travel within the immediate area. It is hard to get to some of our areas that are over an hour and a half by car, but several hours by bus with a transfer. Will you have a car? Is there a good bus system in Kansas? I guess you will find out!
Do you have an address yet? All of our mail goes through the mission home. Does yours?
We are interested in hearing about your MTC experience as it will be different from ours (ours was only a week long).
Your quote for today is one I found on the internet and liked:
"No matter if your fail or succeed, you will have people against you. So you might as well succeed!" --DaniJohnson.com
So have lots of successes!
Love,
Grandma and Grandpa
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| Singing Christmas carols at a government meeting |
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| The Hermanas and Sister Stott |
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| Our zone at the Christmas caroling |
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| Missionary work at the plaza -- talking with people about the "The Gift" a DVD about Christ's birth. |
