Sisters Martineau, Johnson, & Daw sitting in our front yard
Sitting in the library where we volunteer
Hello Everyone!
The rest of my Christmas day went pretty good. We didn't end up getting back home till almost 9 o'clock, so we opened our presents then. That's the latest I've ever opened Christmas presents! We lit a fire in our little fireplace - that made me so happy! Sitting next to a real wood fire again! And then we opened out presents and then we ate some mashed potatoes and green beans (we had a really late lunch instead of dinner so we got hungry) and then stayed up a lot later than we should have playing trivial pursuit.... We had a lot of fun. The rest of the day was all full of visiting the members and recent converts that had us over to eat and driving in between - we have a HUGE area. I think if we tried to drive from one end to another at once it would take about 2 hours. And I loved my presents. I think there must have been a sale on General Conference DVDs.... :) And I love all the Burt's bee's stuff....ummmm......I love all the pictures of Christmas, too. My family is so awesome. I love them. It was kind of sad to see the normal Christmas pictures with just Kristi in them... But I liked her hair in the picture with the sugar cookies, it was really cute. And you can tell the Hollanders they can put me on their membership plan at the rock gym, too, when I get home :)
I'm pretty sure I remembered to tell Grandma Happy Birthday, but just in case make sure she knows I remembered and love her! And I got her card!
You can tell Rick that I got to have some Tamales for Christmas, too! Well, I had them a couple days after Christmas, but it was the family from Honduras that gave them to us. These ones were wrapped in Banana leaves instead of corn husks, I thought it was interesting, I guess that makes them more moist. Sister Martineau has been cooking for us a lot when we don't have dinner appointments and it's been fun. She made us potato tacos today, they were really good! The other day we had spaghetti squash lasagna.
But anyway, we are teaching a whole family that speaks Spanish, they understand some English, and the kids all speak English well, so we can help teach them a little. But they are close to baptism we feel, so that's really exciting. We are going over there on New Year's Eve. They are so excited about it they wanted to make sure that we would still teach a lesson even though it was New Year's. There is another lady here that is being baptized next week. And at first her husband was not really pleased and didn't want to go to the baptism, but we have been praying and fasting a lot, and guess what? She told us the other day that he said he would come! Her son already joined the church a few months ago and is a really awesome kid. Reminds me of Rick :)
But trying to schedule things depending on which city we'll be closest to is kind of a pain. I still have no clue where I am half the time and I get Galax and Wytheville all mixed up. And the members here seem to have it in their head that I'm really here just temporarily, so no one really bothers to get to know me yet :) I hope President just leaves me here the rest of my mission. That way I can pick up a little Spanish, be really busy, have a lot of fun with my companions (because, as we say, two is a companionship, three is a party), and maybe lose some of the weight I've gained since we have bikes here that we can ride when we're going to places close by - my dreams have come true! I can ride a bike on my mission!
I'm sure there's a lot more I could say, but I'm drawing a blank right now, so I'll just have to write more next week.
~Melissa
The rest of my Christmas day went pretty good. We didn't end up getting back home till almost 9 o'clock, so we opened our presents then. That's the latest I've ever opened Christmas presents! We lit a fire in our little fireplace - that made me so happy! Sitting next to a real wood fire again! And then we opened out presents and then we ate some mashed potatoes and green beans (we had a really late lunch instead of dinner so we got hungry) and then stayed up a lot later than we should have playing trivial pursuit.... We had a lot of fun. The rest of the day was all full of visiting the members and recent converts that had us over to eat and driving in between - we have a HUGE area. I think if we tried to drive from one end to another at once it would take about 2 hours. And I loved my presents. I think there must have been a sale on General Conference DVDs.... :) And I love all the Burt's bee's stuff....ummmm......I love all the pictures of Christmas, too. My family is so awesome. I love them. It was kind of sad to see the normal Christmas pictures with just Kristi in them... But I liked her hair in the picture with the sugar cookies, it was really cute. And you can tell the Hollanders they can put me on their membership plan at the rock gym, too, when I get home :)
I'm pretty sure I remembered to tell Grandma Happy Birthday, but just in case make sure she knows I remembered and love her! And I got her card!
You can tell Rick that I got to have some Tamales for Christmas, too! Well, I had them a couple days after Christmas, but it was the family from Honduras that gave them to us. These ones were wrapped in Banana leaves instead of corn husks, I thought it was interesting, I guess that makes them more moist. Sister Martineau has been cooking for us a lot when we don't have dinner appointments and it's been fun. She made us potato tacos today, they were really good! The other day we had spaghetti squash lasagna.
But anyway, we are teaching a whole family that speaks Spanish, they understand some English, and the kids all speak English well, so we can help teach them a little. But they are close to baptism we feel, so that's really exciting. We are going over there on New Year's Eve. They are so excited about it they wanted to make sure that we would still teach a lesson even though it was New Year's. There is another lady here that is being baptized next week. And at first her husband was not really pleased and didn't want to go to the baptism, but we have been praying and fasting a lot, and guess what? She told us the other day that he said he would come! Her son already joined the church a few months ago and is a really awesome kid. Reminds me of Rick :)
But trying to schedule things depending on which city we'll be closest to is kind of a pain. I still have no clue where I am half the time and I get Galax and Wytheville all mixed up. And the members here seem to have it in their head that I'm really here just temporarily, so no one really bothers to get to know me yet :) I hope President just leaves me here the rest of my mission. That way I can pick up a little Spanish, be really busy, have a lot of fun with my companions (because, as we say, two is a companionship, three is a party), and maybe lose some of the weight I've gained since we have bikes here that we can ride when we're going to places close by - my dreams have come true! I can ride a bike on my mission!
I'm sure there's a lot more I could say, but I'm drawing a blank right now, so I'll just have to write more next week.
~Melissa
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