Feliz Navidad, Feliz Año Nuevo, y happy siesta [Merry Christmas Happy New Year and Happy Siesta]

I love the holiday season. But it is going to be a little different, seeing how there is no snow and it is deathly hot with humidity. Oh how great right? But nevertheless the work must go on.  Although with the siesta time in the afternoon there is quite literally no one in the street. And when we try to knock on doors, most the time no one answers, but those few times when they do...watch out because here the siesta is a sacred thing and they always look like they are going to hurt someone. So with that and everyone spending the holidays in La Costa the work is slow and will probably be like this until after the new year...Yay :)

Today we got to travel to the mission home to have hamburgers with the zone and the zone from La Costa! Needless to say I was super excited to see my amigos [friends] from the coast.  It was a lot of travel. Waking up at 4 am to be ready to bike about 20 or so minutes to the terminal to catch the bus at 5:45 for a three hour trip to La Plata, to catch a train for an hour and a half to Banfield. Yea, there is no easy way to travel to anywhere from Dolores, haha.

 

Luckily the Mission home is only a couple blocks from the train station. But the hamburgers were super good, with watermelon, how delicious!! And it was like a Christmas gift in and of itself to see my friends from La Costa.  

Hna Blanco told me some rather great news. So remember the family Gomez? - .....Well...Hna y Hno Gomez [Sister & Brother Gomez] have set a date to get married for the 13 of January!!!!! I almost screamed of joy when she told me this. And I am still beyond happy when I think about it. What better gift/news to receive than to have a great family make their way to become an eternal family forever. 

 

And through her [Hna Blanco], a few of them were able to send me letters including pix. I got one from Antonela, the first one to be baptized in the family (by Elder Day) with a pix at her baptism. The next was Alexis the youngest of them and the second to last child of the family to be baptized also with a pix of us at the baptism. The last letter was from Joana, the last of the kids to be baptized and the oldest child. With reading all of the letters I was happy and almost cried to hear about how well they are doing. But what really got me was that Joana has set a goal to go on a mission. In her words (in English) ¨to be a missionary like you guys¨  oh my heart melted. It is incredible the influence that we have on everyone. Whether we realize it or not, people notice us, it is a huge privilege to be able to influence them for good as reps of Jesus Christ.  

In Dolores, we have great investigators, with one chica [girl] Laila, that is going to be baptized this week. I think I have mentioned her before, and she is super excited that she received permission from her dad to be baptized. She is always ready and excited to go to church, even with walking 30 min in the heat to get there. And this past week her older sister who is less active joined us.  

This work is real and the miracles and blessings are real. The sad thing is that sometimes people don´t realize the simplicity of the work that needs to be done to receive those blessings.

 

I hope you all remember the True meaning of Christmas and get to share that with all your loved ones. Christ came to this Earth for one purpose, the purpose to give us all a shot to live again with him and our Father in heaven with our families.  May you always remember the sacrifice of our older Brother Jesus Christ and I hope that you all simply have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Con Much Cariño [with much love],

Hermana Nieve [Sister Snow]