FAMILIA!! :) How was your Christmas? :) It was so good to see y'all on Skype even though y'all were all a blur hahaha and you were looking up my nose half the time lol! Sorry about that! It was so funny because I told our district leader before I called, just watch and see my family will be arguing about something the first 2 minutes I call, so when it happened I was like look and he was busting up the whole time lol... he is the only one who could understand English so it's all good lol he got a good laugh out of it!! So what did y'all do after I called?? Tell Granny and Steph thanks for coming to talk to me and sorry I couldn't talk to them much :/ And so how was the engagement of Greg and Nicole? I was waiting for photos... haha y'all probably don't have a signal at Grandma's house so I will let that pass as your excuse for not writing me today haha :p oh and ask them if they received my card for Christmas I sent to them? And please take care of all my baptism photos, photos with companions and all the photos I have sent... I am going to take my card to a place today to see if they can restore my lost photos.. I pray they can because I want to send you the pictures of the baptism of Matheus and Alex at the beach.

So my Christmas day I talked with you all :), rode on the bus for 3 hours, took pictures in a park and near the beach with my companion, went to the hospital to visit people with cards and sweets the people in our group made but there were only 3 people there...( its a lot different than hospitals in the US, but it was sad to not have  a lot of people to visit but at the same time I am glad there weren't many people in the hospital on Christmas) and then we taught some lessons, watched a Christmas church film and ate lots of food and slept :) So it was a pretty good day! :) Much different then Christmas with all of you but still was a great day to reflect on my purpose here and the day Christ was born. 

Things have been pretty good here :) We had 4 investigators at church yesterday :) and all seats in our small little building were filled :) One of our investigators is an 11 year old boy and he is so cute and he loves the Book of Mormon, his Mom can't read so each night he reads a little for her :) aww I just want to squeeze him... he has much more faith than I had at 11 years old! Oh so you wanna hear something pretty amazing!!?? :) I know you do! haha So our mission baptized 183 people this month of December!! That is so crazy!! Our goal as a mission for January is 282 people!! The church is growing and it is such a blessing to see and to get to be a small part of the work that is happening here in Brazil! :) We are hoping for the baptism of our investigator Fatima this Sunday so pray for us that things will work out :) Well I hope you all have a wonderful New Year and make lots of goals!! I know I am haha... nothing like a fresh new start!! :) Well tell everyone hello for me!! :) Love and miss you all lots and lots but am so grateful to be here and to grow in countless ways!! :) oh and we can watch the fireworks here at midnight from our back porch hahaha this is good news for us lol- festa!! :) Take care! :)

Sister Mattei :)