It was so good to talk to you guys on Saturday! We did a lot of Christmas caroling after we talked on the phone, then we went to the mission home for about an hour and ate dinner at a few members houses that night. The mission home casa abierta was awesome. Sometimes I feel the slightest bit jipped being a visa waiter, because I feel like I never got to know presidente or his wife;. I just went straight to work when I got here (which is true). So it was really nice to go up to the mission home (a huge mansion up in north Tucson) and chat with Pres and Sis Walker. I especially had a very nice conversation with Sister Walker- she made sure I called home and told my mom that I loved her.
President and Sister Walker are from Utah (somewhere in the mountains I think) and have been married since a few months after Pres. got home from HIS mission to Chile! They dated in high school and she waited for him. They have lots of very cute stories about letters they sent to one another and things. Presidente was in Chile right around the time of the 'coup'(sp?) so I guess it was really dangerous to be an American down there at that time! He likes to tell stories about death threats against missionaries and exciting things like that.
On Christmas eve we Christmas caroled and had tamales and pazole at a member's home. There are Seven missionaries in the sahuaro branch (don't ask me, I'm not really sure why it's spelled with an 'h') so sometimes it's a little harder to find members to feed us-- but EVERYONE offered to feed us for noche buena (Christmas eve) and Christmas day. We built a huge bon fire on Christmas eve, y los Rahm (the Rahm family) gave us presents at their house for Christmas dinner! Christmas was intense because Elder Hernandez was waiting all day to call his family in Mexico! The plan was for him to call at la casa Baraja during dinner, because they had a phone plan for calling Mexico, but it ended up it was only their cell phones! President had JUST sent us all a text message about how it was against mission rules to use members cell phones, even on Christmas. Elder Hernandez was really worried so we started calling around the branch, asking if anyone had calling to Mexico from their HOUSE, FINALLY the Rahms said that they did! We called president, and asked him if it was okay if we stayed out past curfew so Elder Hernandez could call Mexico City and he said of course that was okay!
Finally Elder Hernandez got to call his family, and I got to meet his mom! I didn't want to, but she insisted that she had to test my Spanish and he basically threw the phone at me. She was really nice and welcomed me to Mexico even though I wasn't there yet:) I was really nervous but it was really cool to talk to someone in Mexico City!
Overall, Christmas was a BLAST. What did everyone get for Christmas at home?
To answer your questions, church at the sahuaro branch was GREAT. All the members (though few) are awesome and were very welcoming. I understood all the talks too! which made me feel pretty good. As I said before, we meet in the same building as the Los Reales branch, so I got to see a lot of the members and actually and old investigator family from my old area as well! It was good to see Elders Burns and Kinsey and their new companions too. Oh yeah! Elder Barlow and I are reunited! Elder Barlow moved down to the sahuaro branch from the Los Reales Branch too! Thankfully all the new missionaries didn't have to get up and talk, but I have a feeling we won't be so lucky next week...
Anyway, I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas:) I love and miss you all and was very glad to hear everyone's voices on Saturday!
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