Merry Christmas to All!

Dear Family,

This week is Christmas. That´s crazy. I know several of you have sent packages and cards and letters and stuff. Unfortunately that will all go to the mission home which is on a different island so I won´t be getting any of those goodies until someoñe goes to Praia and brings them back. But thanks for your love and concern.

This past week has been interesting. We had a training on Tuesday followed by a mini division with the Assistants to work on applying what we learned. We got trainings on How to do Contacts and How to begin teaching. I am hopeful that by putting into practice what I learned Elder Brown and I can increase our teaching pool. So after that we did a division with the District Leader to help him and his companion in their work and put in practice what we learned in the trainings. I feel like it went well. We ended up doing a ton of contacts and finding new people to teach giving ample opportunity to practice.

Friday was decent, Saturday was a little rough and Sunday was a disaster. First of all the talks in church were ridiculous. One guy just read from ´´True to the Faith´´ as his talk, and another guy ranted on the word of wisdom. Which while it may have good intentions to help people not go party and get drunk on christmas, wasn´t exactly presented well. Then when we went to choir practice no one was there. So I´m not sure if they changed the time without telling us or what. And then no one showed up to our Preach My Gospel class. So we ended up waiting a lot and being frustrated. But that´s ok because Santa Clause is coming to town. Just in case you hadn´t heard.

Oh, Cookie, I have a Christmas card for you that´s sitting on my desk but I don´t have your address so I wasn´t able to send it. When I get your address I will send it. I´m sure you will enjoy it despite it being late.

And the pictures. One is from soccer this morning. The other is from the volcano but I´m putting it up because some people were curious as to the identities of those missionaries from various countries. So, Elder Brown and I are on top of the sign. The next row from right to left is Elder Costa from Brazil, Sister Namwanje from Ghana, Sister Quashigah from Uganda, and Elder Foerster from Utah. The front row starts with Elder Nyagwambo from Zimbabwe, Elder Monteiro from Cape Verde, Elder Go who is from the Philippines but has lived in the US since he was 12 so he´s technically Philipino, Sister Lourenço who´s from from Angola, behind her is Elder Silva, my last companion, from Cape Verde, then Sister Smith from New Mexico I think, and Elder Jones from Utah. Just saying.

Ok, Merry Christmas!!! Love you all,

Elder Canute