Crazy Christmas!

I am so tired.

This week we had the baptisms of Rodrigo, Ruan, and Renan. They were confirmed yesterday on Christmas! Their mom wasn´t able to go, so I had to arrange a taxi to pick them up last second. The baptismal meeting was special. The Bishop was there, two friends of theirs from the ward, our ward mission leader, their mom, and Elder Aranha and I. It was calm and traquil. It was good to accomplish. I felt such relief.

The members of the ward gave us an awesome surprise. As we returned home on Christmas Eve a ton of them surprised us and gave us almost a whole supermarket full of food. They hugged us and wished us a merry Christmas and it was really neat. I guess it is a tradition here in Aurora. We spent a majority of Christmas Eve with a woman in the ward who got baptized this year. She also lost her husband this year. She was feeling really lonely and hopeless, so we helped make a little Christmas feast and celebrate with her and a few of her family members and neighbors.

The tradition here in Brasil is to wait until midnight on Christmas Eve and then open all the presents. It´s almost like New Years. There was a ton of noise at midnight, fireworks, and people yelling. This made sleeping somewhat difficult. Christmas morning Elder Aranha was feeling way sick. He threw up, he had diarrhea, feeling horrible and weak. He didn´t eat anything. Well, we went to do phone calls at a members house! It was awesome as usual to talk to the family! Love you family!

Almost directly after Elder Aranha finished talking with his family, he was much worse. He looked dead, and was in the bathroom for almost an hour. At 11pm, the bishop came by and gave us a ride to the hospital. After waiting FOREVER, they let us in. They gave him two IVs to hydrate him. It took until 4AM for the IVs to get into his bloodstream. I was so tired, and there was no place to sleep. I tried to sleep in this ridiculous ´´reclining´´chair, but it was less comfortable than sleeping on broken glass. I barely even fell asleep. Bishop had to leave because he had to go to work at 4:30am. I felt really bad for him, he helped us a lot. So, we had to wait until 5AM for a taxi to come by and then we went home. I showered, and we woke up way late (the first time in over a year that I did not wake up at 6:30 am). And now we are trying to make the most of what is left of the preparation day. I am really tired. Elder Aranha is a little better now.

The week between Christmas and New Years is interesting, lots of people are busy, travelling, or with family. We will see what happens. Hope your Christmases were excellent, every one. Happy New Year!

Elder Bodily