Christmas is for......everyone

So, initially, I thought this e-mail was going to be super quick, very
spiritual with the thoughts of Christmas and our Lord and
Savior.....and then I realized I didn´t tell you the stories I had
planned on telling you. So, this will be slightly longer, funnier, and
normal.

But first things first, Mom/Dad/my family. Could you please apologize
to Brenton and Summer. They tried skyping me when I was online last
night and I quickly rejected their request. Not that I don´t love them
( <3 you Brenton, Summer and children!) I just wanted to talk to you
guys more...and we had to leave, so, yeah. But randomly, I do have a
question for Summer. Is she related to any Huish´s that live in
Arizona? Because we had a mini missionary for a while and she looked
mildly similar to Summer....I think. I had that thought the other day.
But really it´s not important.

And second, as for the testimonies, I would like at least one from
each of you, and then if you could find converts (preferably recent)
of a young single adult, a young family, and an older family that
would be great. Especially with the converts if they could share their
testimony on how the Book of Mormon has changed their lives, I think
that would be really special and help a lot of people here in Buenos
Aires. But really, anything is wonderful! Thank you so much.

Okay, stories, muaha, get excited. Okay, so last monday we went to go
make goodies, sing christmas songs and play futbol for p-day
(well...the elders played, the hermanas made goodies), which means I
got to make my toffee and fudge (toffee turned out weird, the sugar
here is super crystallized ginormo chunks). But it´s okay because
elders eat anything with sugar and all the elders not from the united
states had never even heard of it before. And it came to pass that all
hailed Hermana Reed for her christmas goody skills. Which was weird.
Hermana Bray made gingersnaps, they hailed her too. One funny story
from that is that to make gingersnaps you need molasses, right? Right!
And our fearless district Leader, Elder Leon from Chile, was super
excited and was helping us unpack our stuff, saw this molasses, asked
"what is this?" and before anyone could stop him, took a swipe with
his finger and put it in his mouth. Now, I don´t know if any of you
have tried pure molasses....but it´s not tasty. The look on his face
was priceless.

But wait, there´s more. So, I had made the fudge, which needs time in
the freezer to chill/set. So we went to go sing some christmas carols,
and afterwards I was talking with the zone leaders for a bit, so we
were late coming back in to the kitchen to get our supplies. As we
were walking, Hermana Bray comments "I am still hungry" to which I
reply, "well, it´s a good thing we still have the fudge then.." pan in
to the kitchen where we walk in and see Elder Leon and Elder Halls
digging in to the fudge with spoons, rapidly eating as much as they
could. And when they see us walk in Elder Halls drops his spoon like
it burned him and bolts to he corner as if he hadn´t even been near
the fudge. Leaving poor Elder Leon standing there with a huge glob of
fudge on his spoon and this look of guilt. It was the ultimate
hand-in-the-cookie-jar moment. And I laughed so hard, I nearly fell to
the floor. It was hilarious. And the Elders tried to play it off all
cool, oh wait, I mean, they hurriedly started blaming each other and
explaining what had happened. That they were horsing around and one of
them had knocked into the fridge, making the door swing open when they
saw the fudge (which they call food-hey, pronunciation is hard).
Thinking they would take "just one bite" and then smooth it over to
make it seem as if nothing had happened, they ate like half the fudge.
I love elders. So funny.

Story 2 - we went to the Mourtisens family for Christmas Eve to have
dinner and do the nativity. It was really good. We actually did an
Argentine Christmas dinner with an asada. So delicious. And then
afterwards we did the nativity. It was a really good experience, and
my favorite line came when the wise men were bringing the gifts to
baby Jesus. They needed something to be a gift so they looked around
and found this trivia board game. "And it came to pass that the wise
men brought gold, frankensense, and a board game to the baby child.
But it´s okay, because no one really understands this game so it
really is like myrr." So funny, so special. I love acting out the
nativities.

And then, I learned the history of showing someone the middle finger.
Apparently in the middle ages it was custom, when a long range archer
was captured to cut off their middle finger. Because to draw back the
arrow you need your third finger. And so in a taunt, the archers would
show the enemy that they were still capable of shooting them, by
showing them their middle finger. How´s that for random trivia. I
actually learned that from my companion. Thank you companion. I don´t
remember how we got on that subject. But, there you go.

Anyways, those are my stories. kind of random, but it´s Christmas. I
did have a wonderful Christmas. we have solidified the baptism of
Carlos, he will be getting baptized the 5th of January. And we set a
date - ish for the baptism of Daniel....in April. With him we´re
teaching him, and he received a solid answer that the book of mormon
is true, and wants to get baptized, he´s just leaving for three months
to go back to Peru. And wants to be here in Argentina when he gets
baptized. But he´s going to look up the missionaries in Peru when he
is there with his mom, and he´s going to go to church here too. So
that, is a miracle. The other miracle came when we were explaining
about Joseph smith and then he just whipped out his google phone to
look up the mormon tabernacle choir (i forget how we got on that
tangent...but we did) and then he found the restauracion on his
phone....so we watched it. Thank you internet.

Anyways, Christmas is a wonderful time of year. Full of love and the
spirit of giving. And really there are angels around us, protecting us
and helping us move forward. Keep looking for them, because they are
there.

I love you all. Merry Christmas, happy New Year!

Hermana Reed