Toti (12/17/96)

FAMILY!

Hello! Howzit? It is so hot here! It is 9am and I am sitting here sweating to death.  Summer is here.

This week has been pretty tough.  It's the beginning of the holidays here and everyone is away or busy, so that makes our job quite hard.  It's a bit frustrating.  I look forward to February because their holidays aren't over until then.

This week a member of the branch here passed away. It was sad. She had us missionaries over ever Friday for lunch, so we got to know her quite well. She had a heart attack.  She would have been 85 on Sunday.  She passed away on Saturday.  I'll miss her a lot.

It's been a little frustrating because all of our baptisms for this month have been postponed because they all are either too busy or they want to wait until after the holidays. How frustrating!

I don't really know what else to write about.  There really hasn't been too much going on around here.

I did have another cool experience the other day with being able to use my sign language.  We were at an investigators home to teach them and Beauty, the mother, went to the door because someone was there.  I couldn't see the door or who was there, but I could hear Beauty yelling and repeating a question over and over.  I figured someone who was deaf was at the door.  I got to where I could see her and began to sign to her.  She knew ASL.  We started talking, the investigators were so excited because this girl would come and visit them quite often from the time she was just tiny, but they could never talk to her or understand her.  They would sometimes take out pen and paper and communicate that way, but they (the investigators) had me ask her some questions so that they could get to know her.  It was just cool.

It really doesn't seem like Christmas here.  I guess it's good because I am not homesick.  But it just is crazy.  It's just too hot to be Christmas time, plus they don't really celebrate it the same here.

I haven't heard from you all in a while now.  I am supposing that it is because of how busy you are with the move and all or just that the post is messed up because of Christmas.

I hope all is going well there.  I hope that the store is a great success.  I love you all very much.  I miss you as well, but 6 months will absolutely fly by.  I'm still loving mission even though the past few weeks have been tough.

Take care!

Love
Michelle :)

Merry Christmas!