Bernalillo, NM Transfer 3, Week 5

Dear Family and Friends,

Another week has flown by here. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas, and that you're looking forward to a wonderful 2010, because the next time I write you, it will be 2010. Weird!

Monday: We had an... interesting day. We spent an hour and a half in the doctor's office for my dog bite, only to be seen by the doctor for 10 minutes and to have him tell me to wash it twice a day with soap and water and keep it bandaged with Vaseline because the neosporin I was using could cause more problems. Of course by this time, the wound was kinda closed up. At least it wasn't a completely gaping wound. Then we went and e-mailed and the internet was being stupid--I didn't think that my e-mail had sent, but it had. And then we went home and found that the washer wasn't working and the clothes were sitting in there in a puddle of water. Then we went and spent an hour and a half in the eye doctor for Sister Michel to get new contacts. And our gift for the 8th day of Christmas was hair clips.

Tuesday: We helped one of our investigators make Christmas cookies. And our gift for the 9th day of Christmas was perfume--for which I was grateful because that is one thing that I didn't bring that I've been wishing I had for the past 6 months now.

Wednesday: We woke up to snow! Boy did that make me happy! It gave me hopes for a white Christmas. We started our day out with a snowball fight as we cleaned off the car. I don't know if I've ever seen snow that wet in my life! But the snow was all pretty much gone by sundown. The gift that we received for the 10th day of Christmas was un Libro de Mormon por cada una de nosotras con el testimonio de mi familila to give to someone who is truly ready to hear the message of the Gospel. I think that we were all in agreement that it was our favorite gift. When I looked at the bruise around my dog bite, it was turning yellow... not that you all wanted to know that.

Thursday: Christmas Eve. We had District Meeting and did a white elephant gift exchange. I received toe socks, lotion, and a tie. Yes, a tie. Not that it's very useful, but the socks and lotion were nice. (It probably helps that the elder who drew my name is a little older--all the other elders gave ridiculous gifts. I really appreciated mine). I gave coal that I found at the dollar store, and a singing tie--also from the dollar store. We visited lots of people. We saw Magda for a few minutes, but she was on her way out to go call her family. We also went to see Norma to let her know that we're thinking about her and that we haven't abandoned her. And we spent some time with the Luna's and the Clays and the Edwards (both in Bernalillo ward) and the Fonseca's, our neighbors, so Sister Michel could call home. When we got home, we put on our jammies and read Luke 2 and sang a couple hymns, then opened our gifts--a tradition for Sister Cabello. Sister Cabello was VERY grateful for the gifts that my family sent her, as was Sister Michel. We were up way past our bedtime. And our gifts for the 11th day of Christmas were stockings filled with candy, raisins, 2 mandarin oranges and a pile of mold (that I think was a mandarin orange when mom put it in the box).

Friday: MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! I made breakfast cake, and boy was it heavenly :) We had no snow, but I survived. In fact, I didn't wear a coat all day long. It was gorgeous! We went back to the Luna's and had a traditional Mexican breakfast with Tamales and other food. Sister Luna had also knitted each of us 2 sombreros (but not the big straw kind you're all thinking of. They were cute warm hats!) I also got my best Christmas present ever! A call to my family!!! It was easier that I thought it would be. I'd talked to people here who wished they didn't have to call home because they were unable to focus for weeks afterward. It re-energized me and gave me a new drive to keep working hard. We had Christmas dinner with Sister Shipe, then went home and attempted to plan. When I say attempted, I mean attempted. We weren't very successful.

Saturday: The wind was very cold, which made it miserable to be out walking around. And it didn't help that I wasn't feeling super great, though I think it's probably because I messed up my sleeping schedule with Christmas and had eaten a lot of junk. I was feeling fine by Sunday morning.

Sunday: We had close to 30 people at church, which was way nice. Sister Cabello and I had been called Saturday afternoon and asked to speak in church as well because one of the talks fell through. Actually, they just asked Sister Cabello, but then Sister Michel pointed out that I hadn't had the opportunity to speak yet either, so I was roped into it and had 15 minutes Saturday night to prepare a 7 minute talk in Spanish. Yikes. We saw the Stake President and we're still waiting on news from SLC on our branch--definitely a good sign.

So there's my week in a nutshell. For those of you who are interested, my dog bite is doing better. It doesn't hurt and it's finally pretty much stopped bleeding. Yes, it took a while. As I look at it now, I realize that I probably should have gone that night to get stitches. By the time I went to the doctor last Monday it was too late. Oh well. I'll just have a cool scar to show off as a memory of my mission forever. And from talking to people, we've decided that it was likely a Rottweiler that got me. So yeah. Sister Good had a Rottweiler try to eat her. Exciting stuff.

Have a great week, and Happy New Year!

Hermana Good