Elder Merrill's Mission: At last

Familia-

This week was so chock full, and was so great.

Last Tuesday we had our Christmas Conference for our mission. and a talent, show afterwards... it was great! President Silcox even sang!

I'll just share a tidbit from what I wrote in my journal about Thursday, one of the weirdest days of my life: "As we took the bus to Alecsander's house, I thought 'Ok. This morning I took a cold shower because we don't know how to fix our shower (and don't know if it'll electrocute us because of the broken part); we don't know if we'll sleep in our house tonight.. as we were leaving the house, Elder Ambriz asked if I had the keys, and I remembered exactly where they were... on my desk, inside our locked apartment... after some phone calls we realized we had to go all the way to the mission office to get the copy of the key; Right now we're on a packed packed packed and hot and humid bus, going to get the authorization from Alecsander's mom (who's super catholic, so we didn't know if we'd get it), so we can quickly return and go to the mission office (2 hour journey), buy the part for our shower somewhere along the way, and try to get home on time..... And in the middle of all this, we bought a Christmas Tree and lights for our apartment, but had to store it at a member's house because we couldn't get into ours..... I still don't believe I'm in Brazil'" It goes on, but that's a sliver of a day in the life.

We finally got to have a baptism. Alecsander is the friend of a recent-convert, and he's just soooooo awesome. After all the work we've put in this area, we finally saw a result, and it's amazing to be a part of helping someone literally change their life. I love being here, and I'm so excited for this next transfer (its a 7-week one, because this one was 5 weeks, but we're both staying), and I love you all!

Elder Merrill

Us and the Sisters sang a song in the talent show during the Christmas Conference for the missionaries.. it was pretty sweet.

So my new nametag that I've been trying to order for months now finally got here.... All excited, I grabbed it, then looked-- yup. For reals. They forgot the last L....

...so using a pen, paper and tape, I fixed it. :)

I changed!

...So did my companion!

Hot water tanks aren't a thing here, so this thing heats the water for our shower. Last week it broke so we had to take cold showers for a little bit because we didn't know how to fix it. But one night, we got fed up with cold water and became master mechanics....

Our decor thanks to my AWESOME Uncle Mike and Aunt Kristi. Merry Christmas!

Tower of things we made at an investigator's house (it didn't fall)

Ward Christmas Activity on Saturday... it's still so weird to be super hot in December

Churraso!

Eis aqui, o Livro de Mórmon

Sometimes it rains too much before we can get our umbrellas out, and then it gets to the point where it doesn't matter... this was one of those times. Didn't even need to take a shower.