Our Christmas Corner - Sunday, Dec. 6, 2009

We woke up to a clear sky with no rain in the forecast. Yippee! The first thing I did was put a roast in the crockpot for dinner this afternoon. It will be enough for additional meals later on in the week. Love those leftovers!!

Today we were able to drive to church because Hermana Argyle's car is at our office. The elders are taking it to Bonpland (the Area Offices) tomorrow to leave it for some needed repairs. Whenever there is a car at our office on Sunday, the President said we can take it to Tigre to church, thus saving a remis and colectivo fee. It is a nice change to be able to drive ourselves, and especially nice because we do not have to wait for a bus to come by to catch a ride home after church. I was almost hoping it would be raining so it would be really worth it to have a car.

Church was really sparse today. The sacrament was passed to only 29 people. Then, more came in making the total around 40. One of the young men that was baptized yesterday, Etson Hurtado, was in the chapel sitting when we arrived at 8:30. That was good to see. Testimony meeting wasn't lacking for people to come forward and bear their testimonies. There were no pauses, even with the small attendance. There are good people in this branch, just not enough of them.

I had to leave Relief Society early to go to Primary and play the keyboard for the children to practice the songs for the Sacrament meeting program which will be the Sunday after Christmas. If the two leaders do not sing with the five or six children, I'm afraid I will be playing piano solos for the songs. I hope it all works out.

We spent a quiet Sabbath afternoon. Dinner tasted good with mashed potatoes and gravy, corn and salad to go along with the roast. Then I had to catch up on two journal entries.

Our little bit of Christmas livens up our apartment quite nice. We needed some sort of a tree skirt, so yesterday we went to a fabric store and bought a yard of some Christmas fabric and I cut it to go over the tree stand and cover the little chest on which it is standing.

The gifts were sent by my sister, Susanne. She wasn't suppose to send us anything, but she takes good care of us, even though she was instructed that this was a year we would all pass with the gift giving. Her daughter, Shelley, surprised us with a package containing two stockings filled with various items. We haven't taken the things out of the stockings yet. We'll leave that for Christmas morning too.

Our tree has no lights because there is no plug close enough to the tree. We only have one plug in the living room where the multitude of computer things are hooked into, one in the kitchen for the microwave and toaster, one in the bedroom, and one in the bathroom. They don't believe in a plug on each wall around here.

Rich downloaded some of the Christmas music that we listen to at home onto the computer and hooks it up to his little speakers. So we have our familiar artists like Johnny Mathis singing to us when we want some holiday music. It's nice! We are trying to get into the Christmas spirit even though it is soooo different spending Christmas time in a foreign country.