Christmas hand written letter

Dear Family
This is my Christmas letter. I am watching the Other Side of Heaven while writing this. It was funny. They had previews before the movie. There was a preview for Brokeback Mountain. It was funny. While watching the movie we all yelled and yipped when we saw them kiss.
On Friday we went out proselyting. It was great. We started out on a huge street that had 200 people passing a minute. No one wanted to stop. They would mainly ignore us. So we went to a park and had a lot better success. For some reason I was scared to speak at first. I mean very afraid. My mouth would not work. I find this odd because last time we went out I was all in to it and it didn’t matter what I could or couldn’t say I would do what I could. This time I was much better with the language and couldn’t speak. But after a while I was able to speak to one person. After that it was all good. That person was a good contact. I gave him a pass a long card and told him that if he called that number he could have a Book of Mormon. He was so interested he asked if he could have the Book of Mormon he saw in my hand. I of course gave him the book. I then spoke to him for a few minutes about the restoration and the Book of Mormon. He seemed very interested but I felt bad I couldn’t answer all of his questions because of language. I was able to tell him enough and tell him how he could have missionaries share more with him. We talked to other people for quite some time. We are able to have full conversations. We spoke to two girls. When we told them the Book of Mormon was free they said “Por Serio” ‘you serious’. It was very nice to see them so excited. We also spoke to two couples that were sitting in the park for about 20 minutes each answering questions and saying all we could in Portuguese. We met a few members including a firefighter that was working on a concert theater they were putting up for a Christmas concert. I was amazed that he pronounced Risenmay perfectly on his first try. He was a return missionary and had served with Benjamin Risenmay in Belim. I am not sure how I am related to Benjamin Risenmay But I told him he was my cousin because that is the only word for distant relation I know. The Man’s name was Cavalheri. He was a cool guy. What was really great was that when he saw us he invited one of his friends who was also a firefighter over to speak to us. We gave him a book of Mormon and gave him nearly the whole first discussion. He was very receptive. He has a friend in the church. It was a very good day of proselyting. We gave out 7 Book of Mormons and 30 pass along cards. When we got back we learned that the last weeks proselyting our district had given a golden contact to a missionary in Sao Paulo North. They didn’t say anymore than it was a 15 year old girl who had received a Book of Mormon from two Mormon missionaries with heavy accents. They didn’t say a name and it would not have helped but I think it was the girl that Elder Karr and Elder Wind talked to. They said that she showed the book of Mormon to her mother and that they read most of it together before the missionaries came. The Mother and daughter asked when they could be baptized. It is great to see the work we do even in the CTM, as progressing the work of the Lord.
I could write more about what has happened so far but for now I will move on to Christmas.
We got to sleep in until 7:30 on Christmas. We had no classes today. We opened presents this morning at 7:50 and then had breakfast. The gifts were great. I knew what half of them were but I still enjoyed opening them. Tell Lillian and Rick thank you for the tie! I will wear it at least weekly. That puts me at 6 ties and I got some stuff on one of them so really only 5. The cookies and the truffles won’t last the week. Thank you for all the gifts. Today is a lot of fun. I actually had the most gifts of any one in the district.
Until next time,
Elder Reed Risenmay

P.S. I thought I had gotten away with not having any pictures, but you showed me. I was packing an album the entire time and didn’t even know it. I really like it, especially the picture of Lily in a box. It makes me laugh each time I see it. She is so cute. Too bad she won’t look at all the same when I come back.