December 21, 2015 - Can I Be The Donkey? No, Bretts Always The Donkey...

MERRY CHRISTMAS YOU FILTHY ANIMALS!!

first things first please tell me the sisters in our ward and every ward in the stake have some place to go for christmas eve AND christmas day!!! that is your job plz my loving family!! it is sad to wait for someone to invite you to their house... lol we´re still waiting on christmas eve but hopefully something will pull through. its hard when 3 of us are new in this area so we dont know any of the members or anything. It’d be different if i was back in itabaiana with families i love, but here its just Christmas with a bunch of strangers... but it’ll be good! its good to serve others when you’re feeling down!

what a week people lemme tell you. opening an area sure is tough work. we pretty much walked the entire city all day long every day and my shoes have the smell to prove it. too far...? but estancia is pretty cute, its basically the same as itabaiana with the colorful houses all crammed together and the cobblestone streets. but here there are so many people with cars they all must be rich... its just funny to follow addresses here because alot of places don’t really have street signs, so the directions in the area book will be ´´go down the street of the crazy man, take a left at the pink house with an orange door, and around to the big pile of bricks in the road. if you’ve hit the man with the pink shirt selling chickens you’ve gone too far´´ but we make it work. 

but i live here with sister ruiz from dallas and sister oliveira from manaus. sooo hilarious having 3 Americans together, because it has pretty much never happened in the history of the world here. sometimes we sing christmas carols to each other late at night to make it feel more like christmas. they include i saw mommy kissing santa claus, rudolph and the classic 12 days of christmas. 

its the greatest thing working with sister helm, the only annoying thing is that we stand out SO MUCH together, two white girls in long skirts walking down the street. i have never felt so out of place in my life holy cow. people stare at us evvverywhere we go, they all think we´re sisters, and that we´re from germany. i kinda wanna flick em all in the head sometimes but i hold it together. but the funny part is we barely have to do contacting because other people will stop us on the street to ask us where we´re from and what we´re doing here and we just say ´well let me tell you a little something about the church of jesus christ...´´ boom. 

okay and skype this week im thinking its gonna be about 4pm here or 3pm which makes that exactly im not sure what time back home but im sure you guys can figure it out. ahhh im so excited to see you guys!!! plz get the scary doll ready. 

since its christmas i just wanna leave you guys with a little quick testimony of this special time! i am so happy to get to spend Christmas in brasil, even if its sweaty and hot and they don’t have real milk to make hot chocolate and only have palm trees not pine trees. because all that really matters is that i get to remember that my savior was born many years ago and because he was born he gave us the greatest gift of all, the opportunity to live with him again! i am grateful that with his plan i hope we can all remember what gift we´re gonna give to the savior this year, what we´re gonna change and do better to show more gratitude for all he has done for us. after all, it is his birthday! i know my savior lives, i know this church is true and i am so grateful to be here sharing this gift of lasting happiness with the people here! 

love you guys & see you soon!!

sister walker