It's Beginning to Feel like Merry Christmas!!

SOOOO yeah, im pretty hyped for christmas as you can tell? 

DADS QUESTIONS
 Is there a hymn in their hymnbook not in ours that you enjoy? If so, what is it? soo there is a few but i still dont know the names of it and my personal hymn book has all the english names for the hymn at the bottom of the page because i forget the names. and names of things like movies and hymns arent an exact translation. take the movie The Hangover for instance. here its call ``Se Bebe, não casa`` which means if you drink no marrage. its weird

 Do they have good hamburgers there? I actually have yet to eat fast food. its funny but i juts dont have time to eat at restraunts but whenever we go on splits with Guaraciaba (a super cool convert in the bishopric who is learning english so we speak english, well i speak english he tries to understand) he always offers to take us to get a real brazillian burger, hell pay. but we have never had time so maybe this week! haha they have eggs, bacon, pinapple, all sorts of stuff on them.

SOO this week, the confrence with out zone and 2 other zones went well, the reciting os mandamentos went... well its over with now so thats good. haha presidente had elder B (my first companion in the mtc) recite the the first lesson which is short and easy. then elder H (a missionary i met in the ctm) had to recite the second lesson which is longer but still super easy and is just the chapter headings in preach my gospel chapter 3 lesson 2. then a hispanic elder had to recite the third lesson which is longer but easy. and then came os mandamentos which i had to say...

So the presidente gets up there on the stand and announces the order and what theyll say so when it was my turn I walked up to the pulpit and said, os... mandamentos. *sigh* and everyone starts laughing. haha cause they know its long and super hard and its the second to hardest. so the whole first 3 benches have sisters who are literally whispering every single word i need to say, theyre so awesome but i couldnt really hear them cause they were all whispering at once, and it was really just more confusing. so i start off strong get to the second to last point which talks about how to contribute to tithing and fast offerings and i skip a whole line. the presidente was helping too if i paused to longer than 5 seconds he would say one word and i would continue. BUT I made it though!! and only missed 1 line! and probably a few words. everyone who was chosen to recite something recieved a package of wafers and i got wafters and a chocolate bar cause

os mandamentos are super long and the guy after me, a district leader, got 3 chocolate things cause the one after mine is even longer! but yeah so that was nice.

but the confrence was super cool i learned a lot about how to be better missionary and about what i need to focus on and whatnot.

so if i stay here another transfer me and Elder L are going to buy a christmas tree. yes. i may not be home for christmas but ill be darned if I dont at least have a christmas tree. i already bought lights to hang up on our tiny little balconey and we were looking at christmas trees (fake ones, i know, shut up) and a tree 1 meter tall only costs like 18 reals. and with lights and balls already on it costs like 25. so i think we´re going to buy a white fake tree with colorful lights and buy some mini balls to put on it. its gonna be sweeeeet.

so as you know all missionary houses have (or should have) a picture of Jesus on the door. so the other day i made a santa hat out of paper and colored penciles and im no artist, but this was a pretty good santa hat if i do say so myself. so we put it on the photo of jesus and now when we're chillin in our living room near the door or at night we can hear people laugh at our santa jesus. haha its awesome but probably boarderline sacreligious. dunno, we sent sister cascardi a picture so maybe ill be home for christmas.. haha well see.

so weve been chillin on pdays with this couple and the other day he was wearing like a slightly cowboy jungle, boating hat and i was like, ``aye R thats a super awesome hat, im jealous.`` and he was like, ``of this?!``
cause its kinda dirty and pretty old. and im like ``yeah, its show de bola (which is actually only a phrase americans say in our mission but it means sweet)`` and hes like, ``well then you can have it`` and he gave it to me!! so now its hanging up in my room and its freakin sweet and i wear it around the house at night cause its awesome and has a brazillian flag stiched into the side so its pretty much the coolest thing i have from this mission yet... aside from my testimony of course. im gonna get him to sign the inside of it next week. hes sick. hes in the photo i sent. they were both baptized liked 15 years ago but left the church for 7 of those years. but now theyre back and want to go to the temple and eventually serve a mission. so hes almost as awesome as my hat.

so yeah thats my week. i love you all and miss you and think of you all the time!!!

love you!

Elder Hamm,