WILL CALL

So right now it´s 2:30 here in São Borja and on Christmas at 5:30 I´m going to call.  Some members have computers\laptops but don´t have internet at home because it´s semi expensive. Some people have internet but I don´t know that they have a webcam. Everyone just goes to the internet cafes here and pays like a buck an hour. They have webcam (I don´t know how good it is) but I think we´re just going to call  through the chapel that´s in the downtown area.  So you guys should call the chapel at five (It´ll be a different time for you). The number is 34313675 and you have to dial the area code first which I THINK is: 5514. The Sister who gave me the number wasn´t absolutely sure about the area code but I´m pretty sure that´ll work out and if not I´ll collect call home and give you the right area code quickly and then you call here. Ohh.. The call is limited to just forty minutes. I got a package that it looks like the ward (The Rice’s and some youth) sent to the CTM. It looks like it got there a little after I had left and the CTM just now sent it to my mission address. Two envelopes, a Snoopy Christmas book that plays music a P-day shirt and a mountain of bright pink cards came from Mckenna but I haven´t gotten anything from the family yet. [You've gotta be kidding! I sent it 4 weeks ago. (-Joy)]  I´m starting to teach some Elders here how to speak English and I get a bit muddled up speaking English sometimes. I end up mixing a bit of Portuguese and English but one Elder is learning really well. We’re trying to find people. So between the three branches, there´s about 100 people who attend regularly and there´s more than 2,000 members here and it´s a city of about 60 thousand people. I counted not even twenty in attendance at the last sacrament meeting in my branch and It´s hard to get references or teach lessons with members. We're also having trouble finding complete families. I´m sure something will work out. My birthday came and went. Didn´t really feel like a birthday but it was a good day. I got a tie from someone in my ward. It´s like a tie for people who don´t know how to tie ties so it´s got a really weird pulley system behind the fake knot. Lot´s of people buy these because no one here uses a tie for more than the occasional funeral or wedding reception so no one knows how to tie one.  I KNOW THAT IT WAS EXSPENSIVE! I think the minimum here for a tie is about forty dollars. My district leader bought me a tie clip\pin. The holidays are rushing by and ... it just doesn´t feel very Christmas-like. I´m going to sing in a Choir in Portuguese and Latin at the chapel that´s downtown.   Looking forward to talking with you!

So here we´ve got me doing a family night with a part member family and another part member family. Then we have me in  front of the tree. We´ve got some glamm-shots of me in a tie that McKenna sent me. then we´ve got me goofin´off in the p-day shirt and my district leader and his companion. Oh and my Birthday dinner that some Sisters from the ward sent over.

Elder Hanson