One Day a Year

Missionaries are "on" 24/7 and the office is open every weekday with one exception: Christmas Day.

Jaqueline and her mom made this gorgeous cake for the ward Christmas party.

There were various carols sung by different groups and families as the Christmas story was read,
the office elders repeated the zone conference Mundo Feliz number. There was a little cultural acclimation on our part, as they announced it would be at six o'clock and though we knew that wouldn't be the real start time we didn't expect it to take until 7:45 to begin the program, with dinner to follow.......

Monday and Tuesday before Christmas included a lot of prep and going through all the mail and packages extra times to get every possible thing out to missionaries. Sister Houseman was able to have several come in and pick up packages that arrived after their zone conference. There is still one big pile loaded into the back of the President's vehicle to be given out Friday the 27th at the last zone conference.

Christmas Eve at Bishop Rocha's

Some of the Christmas Eve dinner, it was absolutely delicious!
(Rochas really know how to cook and season their food, even the farofa was tasty - that's the bowl with the sawdust-looking stuff, which tastes about like sawdust usually.)
The platter at the far end is typical salad, laid out rather than chopped or mixed together.

Durk pickingthe sicks ands stones out of the sage so we could make stuffing for Christmas dinner - and it worked! I had all the ingredients for poultry seasoning plus extra sage, plenty of onions ---and even celery thanks to Sister Houseman. It was new to the South Americans but they really liked it.

The package of celery looked a little more like the trimmings that would be left after packaging celery, but it worked.

Elder Harrison was told "he was born with a smile and immediately took a selfie".
This was just the first round - we should have photographed the serving dishes before and after :) When Elder Raney said he didn't have room for dessert we knew we had hit a milestone of success.......

We got to watch the office elders and APs do their secret Santa exchange, it was fun. 

They even brought something for us, Durk got a classy tie (with the mission logo in the back) and a frog - ask about the story behind it someday.... and I got this pretty table runner. The elders helped clear up and do some washing but they had a time limit so Durk got to spend another hour and a half washing every dish and utensil in the apartment. So it wasn't exactly a day off but it was fun. I had Christmas music playing on the Ipad all morning while we worked. We were thankful the tank of gas for the stove didn't give out halfway through cooking, and of course we were grateful for the AC! We are back to having to turn it on all the time in whatever room we are in.

Mangoes are getting ripe and starting to fall more often, I still think there's got to be a way to get the ones we see from the balcony but most of them have disappeared while green, it doesn't take much to make them fall. The temple missionaries say people often pick them up and hang bags of them on their doorknobs. If more of them had soft grass to fall onto, like at the temple grounds, it would help. The walks and parking areas often have the remains of loads of fallen fruit.

Traffic is unusually light and it nice, though there were still bangings and yellings at the construction site in the wee hours of Christmas eve morning.

Wonderful Christmas decorations and cards thanks to Bethany getting the project going during her trip to Brunner's in Louisiana. True, they arrived after Christmas, but we are enjoying them very much.

A couple of sisters bought longstemmed flowers made from cornhusks for Sister Houseman and me, I'm sure that's what those holes in the desk are for (some silly people think they are for computer cords)

New Years is rather quiet, New Year's day there were a few food places open at the big mall but no stores. All week the elders have had to search for places that are open to eat lunch. The were some fireworks at midnight but not many near us and it was pouring rain at the time. We did take a break Friday night and see Star Wars. I think my main reaction is that I have seen enough Star Wars. Really, I am star-warred out for the next twenty years. Maybe forty. I am hoping to catch Little Women (Adoráveis Mulheres) that is supposed to come here Jan 9 but will likely leave very quickly thereafter. 

Bethany sent greetings from Utah, the weather seems a bit different there.

Now it's back to prepping for a big group of arriving missionaries again already, and it's the last time the number leaving is close to the arriving, since from now on there will be more and more coming and no big groups leaving. The housing secretaries are really pounding the pavement searching for apartments and Sister Houseman and the other office elders are out buying supplies and furniture. And no sign of replacement couples coming in for either mission so if you know anyone with a bit of Portuguese interested in the excitement of helping a brand-new mission get going this summer, now's the time to get paperwork in!