December 19, 2011

Hola Familia, This week was pretty good. We worked hard and we also had a Christmas dinner with the mission president in Guayararmerin, which borders Brazil just by a river. So we got to see Brazil. That was pretty cool haha. We played soccer with president and the dinner was fantastic! It reminded me of American food and the quality was really good too. We even got to sleep in a hotel and spend the night there. Then we came back home the next morning. I felt pretty good talking to President too. My comp and I sat in front of him and his wife during the dinner because we were sitting in the middle of the table. He moved elders around so they could sit by him too. But we got talking and somehow we got on the subject of my old comp Elder Sangay. The President said that I helped him out a lot and he said he was lacking something and his time with me made him a lot better missionary. That made me pretty happy and I'm glad that I could help him out before he goes home in March.  But it was cool Sunday. Erika came to church and brought a family friend that is actually interested in baptism. He  asked us a bunch of questions. We are going to go teach him tonight so I guess we will see what happens. Erika says she wants to wait a little bit longer but that should help so that her mom can be baptized with her.  I'm still hoping that everything works out well with them because we have put in a lot of effort to help them to be baptized too.  Alexandre didn't get back from her house this weekend so we don't know what will happen with her. It will probably be just a week longer until she can be baptized. We are working really hard and my companion is learning really fast. It's crazy how much you can teach to a new missionary and how much they have to learn too. The good thing is that when he teaches and when he contacts he doesn't look nervous at all, so that's good. I left to do an intercambio with another companionship and he was there in my area with a new missionary. He did really well. He made it to all the appointments and they worked hard. He also invited a girl to be baptized which made me way proud of him because it was a lot later that I invited someone to be baptized.  It's pretty cool to see the progress that a missionary can go through so fast. I am excited for Christmas. I hope we can teach a lot of families because almost all of them will be in their homes. We will just have to see how willing they are to listen. I'm starting to understand a lot more about the real importance of Christmas and I hope we can show the others how special it should be. I kind of want to do something nice for the investigators that I have. They are the single moms. But idk yet if they are going to be here for Christmas or if they will go to anothers house. But we will find out. I hope this Christmas that you guys can do something new that you haven't ever done before. Help out those who don't get to experience a happy Christmas. Sacrifice a little bit more than normal, and I promise it willl make this Christmas more special than the Christmas´s that you have had in the past. It couldn't be on a better day to remember the birth of our Savior. Well have an awesome week. I hope you enjoy the snow? haha. But enjoy it!  People here have never even seen snow.   Love, Elder Christoffersen