Christmas, 2009

We made some treasured memories during the Christmas, 2009 season, and here are some photos of some of them.

At a Mission Christmas function, Sister´s Lopez and Daniels did a spoof on me and President Benton, and they dressed like us and acted like us. I´d participate in a spoof like that every day if I could be as tall and beautiful as Sister Daniels!

To show their great obedience, some of the missionaries complied when I told them to do something funny with their Christmas gifts, and they put them on their forheads.

Also, we had a special Christmas dinner with two Senior Missionary couples, the Burks and the Walls, along with their daughters, who were visiting. Melissa Burk "brought down the house" when she sang "Santa Baby" for us all! 

Interestingly enough, Melissa lives in my sister Gina´s Church stake in Utah. When I talked to Gina on the phone on Christmas morning, I told her that Melissa Burk was coming to the Mission Home for Christmas dinner. Gina immediately said, "Oh, have Melissa sing "Santa Baby" for you. She sang it at our ward Christmas party and she did a great job!"

So, when Melissa arrived at our house, I asked her if she would sing "Santa Baby" for us and she agreed to do it. Then, she found the background music and the lyrics to the song on the internet, and sang "Santa Baby" for us after dinner, to a round of cheers and applause from all of us. 

I love "small world" stories, and this "small world" story was an extra special one, due to the fact that we are here in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Gina and Melissa live in Utah, in the United States, but somehow, we learned quickly of Melissa´s singing talent, and she was able to bless our Christmas Day with it. What a miraculous age of the world we are living in!

We also had a wonderful Christmastime visit from our youngest son, Adam, pictured with us, and Stephen Koumanzalis, the son of our dear Boston friends Arthur and Vi Koumanzalis. Stephen wrote us later that his favorite part of his visit with us was when we handed out lead pipes and nails to everyone and led them all to play Christmas Carols on their pipes by banging the nails on them. (Each pipe is cut to a different length, and is a different musical note when played.)

While we took a little time out for these few respites, we also worked very hard during the Christmas Season to help the Mission work move forward with full force, and, of course, that was the most gratifying part of the Christmas Season for all of us in the Mission. So next, we´ll share photos of some of baptisms we´ve had in the Mission during the past Holiday Season.