The After-Christmas Stuff

Hello to one and all!!!!

I´m kind of in the same boat as you all were in writing to me. I just talked to everyone like three days ago, and not that much has happened since. But, I can tell you that I absolutely loved talking to everyone on the phone, and that it made me pretty happy. The only down side to the calling home thing is that one can get homseick afterward. The nice thing was that after we got done calling, we just went back to the apartment to eat some lunch and then to the chapel in Centro to work on some stuff, and then played Uno for a little while before heading back down to Belgrano. And that pretty much sums up all of my Christmas season, the first of two here in my mission.

As I said, for Christmas Eve we went and sang in the hospital for a while. Which, was definitely a different experience. Why? Because it was the public, free, hospital, not the private type one where Elder Guerra had his operation. It was pretty cool, but a little strange. We even sang a little bit in the pediatric ward. Then, we hung out a little bit downtown, before going to a member´s house, to eat a Christmas Eve dinner. Then it was home to the apartment, pretty much running to make it home before midnight and avoid all the problems that happen when people really start to party at midnight. (Apparently people like to shoot guns in the air and lots of people get injured as the bullets come back down.) We played some card type games for a while before going to sleep. In the morning, it was off to the chapel to call home, where he called first, and then me second. For the rest of Christmas day, read above. ;) Haha. Saturday was a completely normal day of missionary work again. We did have some success in that we put two more on baptismal dates. Which made us both really, really happy. From there we come to Sunday. We had some investigators in the chapel. I got to conduct again, which was fun, especially because there were 40 people in the chapel. (Matthew is serving in the Branch Presidency.) The numbers keep going up, and we keep getting happier. It was the highest attendance in almost a year here. There is a lot of hope and potential in the Branch, we just have to find it, and keep using it. Then, we had a meeting as the Presidency to go over what items we need to buy to make our end of the year buy from the Distribution Center. Stuff like that. Afterward, it was off to work again. We stopped by some members' houses and then we went to another family, and were able to put some more on baptismal dates for January. We ended the week really, really happy. I just hope that all the people we have put baptismal dates with, make it there.

Today we are playing Paddle for Pday. And then I will be leaving Goya, for Bella Vista for splits. And then Wednesday we have zone conference up in Corrienties Capital. The rest of the week should just be working on finding some new people and keeping the ones that we have. I´m excited. This week we also have lots of stuff to do as part of the Branch. We´re going to be making visits with the President to some of the inactive/offended members to try and make ammends there. Hopefully all will go well.

Well, that´s all that I have to say. I still can´t believe that my family went to Disneyland without me. Haha, we will just have to go when I get home, two Christmas´s from now. : )

Gotta run,
I love you all!!!
-Matthew