Christmas in Peru‏

My companions and I before I skyped you.

Hola familia. It was so fun to be able to skype you all this week and see how everyone was doing. We had a fun week for Christmas. It was a little different because of the holidays but I still felt like we had a really productive week this week in spite of it all.

My companions and I on their skyping day. They are beautiful.

Since we couldn't contact on Christmas or Christmas Eve we went around and visited families in the ward or less active members and sang Christmas songs. We sang in English and Spanish depending on what people wanted. One time we were singing some songs in English and there was a man that walked by us three times trying to act casual but we noticed. Haha. Some of them let us share a Christmas message with them and it was really fun.

My present from my pensionista on Christmas Eve. They open all presents on Christmas Eve.

In Peru they celebrate Christmas on the 24th. We got special permission to stay up with our pensionista's family and eat dinner at midnight with them which is the tradition here. At midnight they eat dinner and let off fireworks. There were tons of them. It was hard to sleep the rest of the night because of all the fireworks. The day before Christmas Eve the husband of our pensionista came home with a bag full of live hens. They ended up killing them the next day and that is what we ate for Christmas Eve dinner. One of my companions couldn't handle that we had just seen that chicken alive and now we were eating it so she tried to sneak all of her food to us. It was funny.

For Christmas day we read in Luke together for study. They switched off reading in English and I read in Spanish. It was special too. 

The rest of the week was good too. The negritos have started dancing but I haven't seen them yet! I have heard them though. We always seem to be inside when they pass. There was a group that passed by the church yesterday while we were in ward council and it was so loud that we couldn't hear each other. They were playing their drums and things. I really wanted to see them but I heard that we will see  them plenty the next few weeks.

Our zone on Christmas Eve. We got together and did a little gift exchange.

We contacted and taught a little lesson to a catholic church leader this week in the street. He had never heard of the Book of Mormon and was really interested in it. We answered the questions he had and gave him one to read. The problem is that he lives in the big catholic church on the Alemeda street so we can't teach him where he lives. But I am excited to see if he actually reads it. He was really nice.

Our little Christmas Eve party. I made the pumpkin spice cookies and the Elders brought chocolate milk. It made it really feel like Christmas and everyone was so happy.

This week we had several lessons with Diego and he is really progressing well. He is going to be baptized on Saturday in the early afternoon and we are really excited for him. He might be the first baptism for at least our area for the year. We don't know yet. During church he read like five chapters of the Book of Mormon. He was glued to it and he tried to answer every question in our gospel principles class. I hope that he will be a light to his family. It's so fun to see the change that the gospel makes in peoples lives. 

This is one mosquito bite that swelled up on my hand. It was the worst because everyone that shook my hand made it hurt so bad.

Hope you all had a great Christmas and have a Happy New Year this week! 

Love Hermana Rhoten