Oi Familia week 51 (week 52, ONE YEAR is next week!!!!)

Oi Familia!!!!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! It was SO good to skype all of you this past week!!! I wished I could have stayed and talked longer! But that'll have to wait until Mother's day I guess! Sorry you all were sick though! (most of us were throwing up with fevers... it was horrible...) That is no fun! But I'm glad you had a good Christmas in spite of that! And it sounds like you had a fun trip to Lincoln City! Haha and you mock Burger King and how "fancy" it is- I will be SO excited to go there after a year and a half and eat a real burger!!! It sounds like that talk about the hiker was super good!! That is an interesting way to look at our challenges in life! 

This week we had our branch Christmas Party on Christmas Eve here! We sang lots of Christmas songs accompanied by accordion (I'm pretty sure accordion

is the official Cape Verdian instrument! Haha), had a nice spiritual thought from one of our members about how Christmas can be every day when we remember the true meaning of Christmas, ate LOTS of Cape Verdian food, had a present exchange, and a reenactment of the story of Christ's birth- performed by our members in creole! We didn't get to stay for the bulk of it because we have our missionary curfew and all, but it was so much fun!! 

Christmas here was goooood! It was actually a lot like any other day (Except for skyping!!!!!) because as a missionary you still go out and teach. And Christmas is definitely not nearly as big of a deal here in Cabo Verde. Most people don't give or recieve anything, and the most they'll have in their house (if they have anything) is a little Christmas tree. But no matter how you celebrate Christmas, it still is the time of year when everyone especially remembers our Savior Jesus Christ and all He did for us! And that is the really the most important part! 

On Christmas, we secretly surprised some of our investigators with a little Christmas tree and a few little gifts. It was all supposed to be a surpise, and they were never supposed to find out who left it. We were just going to leave it on their front step, knock, and run! But! When we got to their house (which is like an hour walk away from our house... so there was no way to just come back later) it was locked and they were not home! And leaving colorful packages on the front step of any house here would definitely end in them getting stolen! So we didn't know what to do!! We looked for an open window or any way we could hide the presents so they could find them. Finally we saw a little opening in the wall above the back door. But if we just threw the stuff through there it would have broken! So we tried for a few minutes to figure out how in the world this was going to work! We looked around a bit, and found this big long plant that had been pulled out of the ground. I'm not really sure what it was... But we got the idea to put the presents in a plastic bag, tie the plant to the bag, and lower it all down through the little hole. Crazy idea... But it worked!! But it also made us start laughing so hard that these two little boys came running over to see what was happening. They talked to us a little, and then said that the dad was coming up to his house right then!!!! OH NO!!! There wasn't time to run away, so we just made it look like we had come to teach him. So he let us in, we sat down, and he got up to open the windows, and the door leading to the quintal (the little room that has the back door!!!! The back door we had used to drop the presents!!!!) So Sister de Pina and I are sitting there and we look over and can CLEARLY see the plastic bags we had just dropped down. Luckily the dad didn't see anything, or if he did, he just thought it was a plastic bag of garbage or something... nothing important or out of the ordinary. He came and sat down with us, and luckily sat down somewhere that he could not see into the quintal. But we definitely could! We had to try so hard to conceal our laughter- especially when it got a really windy and the bags started moving across the floor and making crinkly plastic bag noises!!! Oh man. After what seemed like an eternity of trying to keep him from seeing the presents, we finally made it to the end of the lesson. We said the prayer, and booked it out of that house as fast as we could. As soon as we were out of hearing distance, Sister de Pina and I just looked at each other and just about died laughing!! 

Well that was my Christmas week in a nutshell. I love you all!!! I am so grateful for this Christmas season to remember our Savior Jesus Christ! I love this gospel and I know that is it true! And I am so grateful for my family!!! You guys are the best!!! Thanks for all of your prayers and love and support! Have a happy new year!!

Love,

Sister Jaime Turley :)