A White Christmas in Loja!

Hoooolaaaaaa!!!!

First off, Feliz Cumpleaños a Kristen y a mi querida tia Laurie!!!!! Your birthdays were last week but I hope they were awesome all the same. Anyway, first off, the big news: we are going to have a White Christmas!!! In other words, we're having a baptism the 25th of December!!! His name is Jeffrey and he's a cute little 9 year old boy, the younger brother of one of the members in Jipiro. One day while we were practicing, Alexis called us over and said, hey sisters, do you want a baptism??? Ummmm . . . . . DUH. What kind of missionary doesn't want a baptism?? He then said that his little brother hadn't been baptized yet but had been to church a bunch of times and wanted to get baptized. Okay, we can help you with that. The permission slip is signed and all we have to do is finish teaching him and find him some white clothes. Awesome.

More good news: I received FOUR packages this week!!! The whole zone looked at me like I was a spoiled brat, but I just smiled and waved. It's gonna be a Merry Christmas after all!!!!

On to more important things: we found a new family this week, Monica and her son Kevin. She answered the door when we were looking for our mamita and when I saw her I thought she was already a member. Turns out she's not yet, but she was looking for a way to get her family closer to God and we were like, how about sealed together and living with God forever?? She loved our message and although she didn't come to church this week I know she will next week. The funny thing is that she's really receptive but her son Kevin is the one that doesn't want to listen. Know how old he is??? EIGHT. It kind of makes me laugh, but we're getting in good with him little by little. They're both gonna be baptized, I just know it. One doesn't have a member face for nothing . . . . . .

So here we are in Guayaquil again, renewing my censo. I have a few commentaries to make on the trip last night: the absolute WORST road trip I have ever taken in my life, seriously. It started when we got on the bus and I was looking for our seats. I saw a couple who had their seats tilted all the way back and the wife was bothering her husband. This made me laugh until I noticed that our seats were right behind this couple and despite the fact that they both saw us struggling to get into them, they refused to raise their seats up to help us out. Finally we both managed to sit down, after much tribulation, and I figured out that even with my seat tilted back there wasn't enough room for my legs, which meant that I was incredibly uncomfortable all night. Then there was the window. HNA Bravo and I wanted it open, so I opened it. After about 15 minutes the guy behind us said, hey can you close the window?? So we closed it, waited until he was asleep and opened it again, haha. Then I fell asleep and when I woke up I realized that the guy behind us had closed the window AGAIN. Fortunately, he was asleep again, so I opened it. I realize that it was a little passive-aggressive, but we didn`t want to be throwing up the whole night. Then I fell asleep again, woke up right as we were coming into Guayaquil at 5:30 in the morning, and realized that my ears were so stopped up that I could barely hear out of the left one (remember that to get to Guayaquil from Loja you have to make a lot of altitude changes) and that no amount of yawning, swallowing or sucking on cough drops could make them pop. Just now they're starting to pop again. Fortunately this is the last time that I have to go to Guayaquil for legal stuff (I think) so we'll only be making this trip one more time-this afternoon, on the way back to Loja. You can not even imagine how happy we are about this!!!!

We're really excited about Christmas. HNA Bravo and I are going to go caroling to all the members and investigators (Spanish word of the day: Carols-villancicos.) Plus one family has already invited us to eat and I'm sure that more are on the way, if Loja is anything like Guayaquil on Christmas. Plus I get to talk to YOU GUYS!!!!! YAAAAAAAAAYY!!! The sad thing is, Loja is a lot more expensive than Guayaquil when it comes to calling the United States, so I might have you guys call me at home. But we get to make a practice call to arrange everything so I'll let you guys know. If a weird number shows up on the caller ID, it is NOT a telemarketer, it's your daughter!!!

MUCHO AMOR

Hermana Chamberlain