Dec. 27 Christmas in Mendoza

Talking with Kylie this past Sunday was the best Christmas present we could get.  She is happy working hard with the members of her ward.  How grateful we are for those sweet families that treat Kylie like she is one of them.  What a sweet peacefulness it brought to know that on Christmas Day she was celebrating with her sweet companion and a family who took them into their home.

A few things that Kylie told us about celebrating Christmas this year.  She and her Peruvian companion tried to share traditions that they both brought from home.  First Christmas is more like the 4th of July there - partying till early hours, fireworks and late nights!  But on January 6 they celebrate " the day of the Kings?"  This is the day the wise men came to visit Jesus and this is more like our Christmas - family, presents and reverence.  So that tradition is what her companion brought to their small apartment.  She made Kylie a traditional chicken dish, while Kylie made chocolate pie. Kylie also brought the tradition of " christmas PJs" although they did not look like PJs for our season.

Their Christmas Eve Dinner

Christmas PJs Argentina style

Christmas Eve sparklers

A missionaries humble Christmas

It was better for us to send Kylie and her companion $ for Christmas instead of gifts - to expensive to mail.  They choose to take half the money and give all the members and investigators a card and small gift.  They took the remainder and divided it in half and secretly shopped for each other and wrapped it up and put it under their little tree.  And funny thing - we never asked what they gave each other so I don't know what was in the packages.  

On Christmas Day they spent it with the Sepulvadas - her Argentina family who were so cute on the Skype call.  They told us Kylie is crazy - think they have gotten to know her?  

LOVE OUR DAUGHTER!  Seeing her was our greatest gift this year.  Hard to believe she will be home this next year.  Can't believe I'm saying this but it seems like she just left yesterday.  

Dec. 12: Baptisms and setbacks

YES  - We had a baptism.  We were teaching this kids mom for a long time! His mom, Natalia, was a member but went inactive for a long time but when she started coming to church again the church didn`t have her records. So, we get to teach her everything again and she gets to be baptized again! She`s not married to the man she`s living with and he doesn`t want anything to do with the church but he has respect for what we do. Natalia and her 2 smallest kids, Clara and Nacho, have been coming to church every week for about 3 months and the kids love it! Nacho turned 8 almost a month ago and said ¨Hermanas, I`m 8 now, when can I get baptized? ¨ ahhhh he`s so cute!!!!  The day of his baptism Hna Duran and I were at the church at 7am because it takes FOREVER to fill up the baptismal font because it`s super slow. But it all went downhill when the warm water wasn`t working. So, we had to fill up buckets of hot water from the kitchen one by one and dump it into the font. Then there wasn`t hot water at all and we resulted to boiling water and then dumping it in hahaha it was really all in vain cause poor little Nacho was dying when he got in the font and it was ice cold hahah I DON`T GET IT! Despite that he came out of the font with a smile ear to ear and happy as can be and didn`t complain once!!! His dad (the guy that doesn`t want anything to do with the church) came to the baptism and then to the confirmation on Sunday and stayed for the classes!!! And he said he liked it and was starting to schedule what day we could come by when he`ll be there :) ahhhh Nacho is the cutest little boy but the biggest example for his family!

Eliana, who was another one of our investigators that had a date to get baptized and came to the Capilla Abierta and everything dropped us this week. She`s been having complications with her boyfriend who is living with her and he doesn`t like that she`s been talking with us. She said for a little while while she sorts stuff out, she can`t listen anymore. ah NOOOOOO!!! literally broke my heart!

With 2 other of our investigators, Santiago and Mercedes (the 2 cute little kids) they were supposed to have their baptism this upcoming Saturday but their mom said that she doesn`t feel that their ready. :( noooooo and so we have to work with them a little more! 

SCRIPTURE

My scripture thought this week is a talk from Pres Utchdorf from the women’s conference in October ¨Fourth Floor, Last Door¨ it`s one amazing talk and I invite you all to go read it this week!!! Here`s some quotes from the talk:

¨Sometimes it’s not easy to develop faith in spiritual things while living in a physical world. But it is worth the effort because the power of faith in our lives can be profound¨

Faith means that we trust not only in God`s wisdom but that we trust also in His love. It means trusting that God loves us perfectly, that everything He does - every blessing He gives and every blessing He, for a time, withholds - is for our eternal happiness¨

¨Just because we can`t hear something doesn't mean there is nothing to hear¨

¨Perhaps to increase faith, we need to listen differently¨

con mucho mucho amor 

Hermana Smoot

The small Relief Society of the Mendoza Ward

Nacho and Hermana Duran and I