Transfer 4: Week 2; South 2

Hello everyone!

I hope this Christmas season is fun for everyone; every night here it gets crazier and crazier... too many people and not enough time to talk to everyone. Sister Bruno seems to attract every RM from Brazil that exists on the Square. Portuguese is a very odd language to listen to, it sounds like a hybrid mix of Spanish and Italian. It's harder to follow than Japanese. There haven't been too many memorable people that I've talked to so far in this transfer, so it's rather difficult for me to think of any fun experiences this time around. There was one man who thought my companion was attractive and tried to ask her out at Wal-Mart, but other than that we've been trying to figure out what it is we're supposed to be doing now that we are teaching.

We're starting to teach people now, which is an exciting adventure. My first teaching appointment I accidentally called someone's grandchildren 'evil' instead of 'even'. At least she thought it was funny. We teach until the person meets with the missionaries, and then I have no idea what happens next. After that... I have no idea: we've never gotten that far. We have a fun world map where you can see who has been contacted by missionaries and are being taught by the missionaries. (even some baptisms and the whole mission's been doing this or a week now) It's fascinating to see how everything works out here on the mission now that so much has changed. I'm thankful we have some top notch leaders this transfer who can sort everything out; there is a lot of scheduling to be done here in the mission. In case anyone was wondering (I know I sure was) South 2 means where our teaching phones are located, so now I spend half my day in the basement of the South Visitor Center teaching people all over the North American Continent. (we could teach anywhere in the world, but everyone we're teaching thus far are from the US and Canada)

Temple Square has snow again, so the lights look like a winter wonderland. President Holmes, Sister Doggett, and I were talking about the lights and realized that with over 700,000 lights it's almost how many families are in the church right now. Funny how there are so few lights on so few trees (they alternate putting the lights on the larger trees here, and the biggest trees are dark this year) but you don't notice because of how bright the lights on the other trees shine. The same is true of our families in the world. Who cares if there are not as many lights around your area, that doesn't mean that you put out your light to fit in with everyone else, it means that you try to let everyone else light theirs. It would be pretty amazing, no?

Hope that all is calm and bright!

Sister Pielstick