Merry Christmas! This is one more Christmas in Brazil, away
from family and friends. But we are
doing well. Although we miss everyone,
it is hard not to be happy when we are a part of such a great work! Working hard as a missionary is a sure way to
cure homesickness and probably most every other problem as well. And it has been a busy week! It seems like we have had to juggle our
schedule every day in order to fit in all of the appointments and
meetings. Christmas is always a busy
time, but it is a unique experience to be so busy doing missionary work! When we are missing home and family, we
remind ourselves that this is our last Christmas in Brazil. We know that we need to make the most of
it. It is a great opportunity and
blessing to be a missionary. We remember
the promise made to us that more happiness awaits us than we have ever
experienced as we perform our missionary labors. It is an especially joyful season to be a
missionary.
It is amazing how
perspective can change the way you view things.
It used to be if it was getting close to Christmas and it wasn’t snowing
and cold, it didn’t “feel like Christmas”.
At the beginning of this week we commented that it just wasn’t hot
enough to be Christmas time. One day we
got caught in a rain storm without an umbrella.
We had a few cooler, but really pleasant days. We remembered it being hotter last year here
in Brazil. But then towards the end of
the week, things heated up. And we said
to ourselves, “Now it “feels like Christmas”!
But then Saturday night, thunderstorms moved in. We had some pretty severe thunderstorms that
lasted through the night and for most of the day Sunday. It caused some flooding in some areas. We walked home from church on Sunday with water
ankle deep in some places and with the wind turning our umbrellas inside out
more than once. (We had been fortunate
in that President Glauber stopped and picked us up at the bus stop on our way
to church.) We arrived home after church
and found that our phone and internet were out.
It was probably caused by the storm.
Church attendance was
down on Sunday probably due to the heavy downpour. But both meetings had nice Christmas messages
and music. Elder Shirley got recruited
spur of the minute to sing bass in a quartet.
He wasn’t even sure what songs they would be singing when he got
up. They sang three Christmas hymns out
of the hymnbook. It was beautiful,
especially the bass part! (But we hear
“it’s all about that bass”!)
It was transfer week
this past week. We lost Elder Hoopes and
Elder Lopes. We were happy that everyone
else was staying. The new missionaries,
at least new to Cachoeira, are Elder Campbell from Oregon and Elder Latorre
from Chile.
The branches held
their Christmas parties this week. So we
spent a bit of time spreading the word and issuing invitations in both the
Marina and the Uniao branches. We enjoyed that.
We hadn’t seen Nelson (the pan maker) and Lucia for a while. We also hadn’t seen Gilmar and Luanna and
Kaleb either. Both families are in the
Uniao branch. We had really good visits at both places and
others as well. Uniao held their party
on Tuesday and had some touching music, videos, talents, as well as a
nativity. They involved both the youth
as well as the adults. It was a nice,
but late evening.
We were sad to miss
the Christmas party of the Marina branch.
It was held the same day as our Christmas Missionary Conference in Porto
Alegre. We didn’t get back in time to
attend. But we hear it was a nice
evening. For refreshments, President
Glauber wanted to serve the cupcakes like we had for Elivelton’s baptism. We had ordered those cupcakes from Nilson’s
sister, Marcia. Nilson is not a member
and was in our English class. We have
maintained a good friendship with Nilson.
He works at Delta Sul, just down the street from us. Marcia makes really wonderful cupcakes. So President Glauber got her phone number
from us and not only ordered cupcakes, but salgados too. We didn’t even know that she made salgados. We hear refreshments were great. Although we weren’t able to attend, we made
visits inviting others.
We were happy to see
how well Fernando, the new baby, is doing when we visited with Julio and
Roseangela. We just really enjoy their
kids. Julian, the 11 year old boy, is a
pretty good artist and wanted to draw a picture for us of whatever we
wanted. So we requested he draw us a
picture of the bat in our garbage can (story from a few months ago). It gave us the opportunity to re-tell the story
and of how our prayers were answered when we needed help getting a bat out of
the house. He is going to finish up the
picture for the next time we visit. We
encouraged him to tell his sister and his dad the story too. It turned into a missionary opportunity!
We visited Artur again
this week. With a new year coming, Elder
Buhler and Elder Gorham asked us to throw out the date of January 3 to Artur
when we discussed his baptism date again.
He always says I will after my teeth are fixed, after I see the doctor
and always adds “but before you guys go home”.
With a new year coming, it would be a great time for a new start and to
get those blessings coming. Artur didn’t
say no to January 3. He also didn’t say
yes. But he did say that he would think about
it. It was a good visit.
Christmas week is wedding
week for Elivelton and Bruna. We are
excited to go to their wedding. We had
another good lesson with them as well.
The Christmas
missionary conference in Porto Alegre was, of course, a highlight of the
week. The van picked us up in front of
our apartment at 4:30 am. All of the
missionaries from Cachoeira rode in the van.
It was a nice day with good messages, good food, and the opportunity to
renew friendships. We got back home
about 9:30 pm, tired but happy.
Elder Buhler was
experiencing a few health issues this week.
We accompanied him and Elder Gorham to the health post. He got called back to see the doctor about
the same time that the doctor decided he was sick himself. So Elder Buhler got sent up for a
consultation at the hospital. We went
with them as we were familiar with where to go.
We have been there visiting members as well as with other missionaries. Just to be safe, Sister Castro suggested
Elder Buhler stay overnight in Porto Alegre after the conference and get a
consultation there. They returned the
next day. Hopefully, with a couple days
rest, Elder Buhler will be back to his hard-working self.
Missionaries are still
working on that “white Christmas”. Elder
H. Silva and Elder Campbell had two more baptisms on Saturday. Yay!!
They were a couple of really nice kids.
(The kids requested that we don’t post their faces on social network.) Following the baptism, there was a
seminary/institute graduation. A really
severe thunderstorm moved in and delayed the start of the ceremony by an
hour. The lights threatened to go out a
few times. The ceiling was leaking,
there was thunder and lightning. It was
exciting. It also affected
attendance. Not too many were
there. It was followed by a baile
(dance). We stayed for the ceremony and
a dance or two. But we were tired. So we started out for home. It was still raining lightly and we didn’t
have an umbrella. We were about half way
home when a member stopped and gave us a ride.
We were grateful. The bus
schedule is pretty poor on the weekends.
During the week, we can count on buses regularly. But on Saturday and
Sunday, there are a lot fewer buses which is ok when the weather is good, but a
bit more of a challenge in the rain, especially when we are walking long
distances. We love the rain, but we look
a lot better when we don’t arrive at an event soaking wet. We don’t mind so much if we are just going
home.
We are looking forward
to Christmas! We have had some fun
preparing and thinking about it. We went
toy shopping as we were asked to contribute to a branch toy drive. That was fun.
We have missionaries making plans to Skype with their families from our
place. We have been invited to the home
of President Glauber, Luci, and Dione.
Elder Buhler and Elder Gorham will be there too. We are planning what food to prepare to
take.
For sure, we miss home and all of
you! But we will be ok. We hope each of you has a wonderful
Christmas! May Jesus Christ be the center
of all of our Christmas celebrations! We
love you!
Eu te amo!
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