Christmas???

Hello everyone!

Alright, first off I wanna address the whole holiday business. Holidays don`t exist. It doesn`t feel like Christmas in the least bit here. It`s about 90-95 degrees. You can`t have Christmas in this type of weather?! Anyways, there are a few houses with fake scraggily lookin` Christmas trees and a couple of houses with Christmas lights, but that`s about it. Luckily, there were 2 days this week that sort of felt Christmas-ish. On Tuesday night we had a Noche de Hogar with Anna, Paulo, Camila, y Dante. Anna is reactivating in the church and her daughter Camila is going to get baptized this Sunday. For the Noche de Hogar we ate a little bit of food then started to decorate their house for the holidays! yay! Haha but yeah, they turned on some Christmas music in spanish we put up their small tree and decorated it, put some stuff up on the wall, and began to hang Christmas lights. It was so weird cuz it made me realize that everyone at home is doing this stuff without me :S Oh well.. Then, yesterday we had lunch at the Bishop`s house. They had the nicest lookin` tree I`ve seen so far here in Chile. It wasn`t that big, but just looked good. (Which reminds me, please send me pics of our 10ft Christmas tree please!) We ate some Christmas cookies and listened to Mormon Tab Christmas music. It was really nice as well. Right now though, I have trouble even believing it`s Christmas.

Something really cool that happened this week was that I got really REALLY sick on Thursday and basically slept in the bathroom. (I didn`t really sleep in the bathroom though, the floor was too dirty. But you get the idea). The only thing that I ate that the other Elder`s didn`t was some store bought nestle manjar? But yeah, I had to stay in the Pension for a day.

I`ve realized that I really miss music this week. The other day when we were taking a collectivo (taxi-ish) to our Zone meeting, the collectivo driver turned on the radio and the song ¨Let´s Get It On¨ came on. Wow, weirdest thing ever. The four of us Elders felt embarrassed and awkward haha. It felt like a sin to hear such a song, but we enjoyed it a it. Sorry :S It was really fun to hear real music though. Right now as I`m typing at the store the song ¨Weapon of Choice¨ by Fatboy Slim just came on and it sounds like the coolest song ever. OK, I need to refocus...

The other day we ran out of toilet paper and we were running low on money so..... The Yellow Pages became our new bathroom buddy. Yesterday we saw two full on bearded ladies. No lie. Middle aged women with goatees or whatever. Made me feel funny.

The Presidential elections of Chile have been going on for the last few weeks now. The Diputado elections too. Campaigning has been intense. Practically every wall in our sector is covered in paint. One day HASBÚN will have his name covering a street and the next day all his signs will be torn down and the walls will be painted over with the name ALESSANDRI. It`s messy, crazy, and strange. Last night Piñera won as President though. It`s all interesting to watch. Truth is though, the face of HASBÚN, who`s running for Diputado, will forever be burned into my brain. His face is EVERYWHERE.

Next Sunday we have two baptisms. One of Camila and the other is Constanza. They are 9 an 10 years old. One is extremely bright and understands every principle we teach her and the other is kinda half way there. But we`re excited for them and their families. Also, we`ve been teaching a family of 6 that lives DIRECTLY in front of the chapel. Gloria (50s), Gloria (23), Romina (25), and Estefanía (14) have been listening to us pretty well though. They`ve been reading the Book of Mormon, praying, reading the pamphlets we give them, and praying. The one thing they don`t want to do though is GO TO CHURCH. You think it would be easy for them because they step outside and they`re at church, but no. We`ve been praying and fasting for them big time. I think that the can definitely progress.

Well I love you all. I miss you so much, especially since Christmas is almost here. I hope you all enjoy the holidays and eat plenty for me. Gotta run

Love,
Elder Mooney