"Papas Funerales"

December 24, 2015

Chilean custom for Christmas is to have a dinner late on the 24th and open presents at midnight.  The next day is pretty much sleeping and visiting, and of course more food.  We are going to Christmas Eve dinner at our Branch President's home and we are supposed to arrive at 9:30 pm!  Emely, our friend, said we would probably return home about 1 or 2 am.  Hope I can stay awake!

Today Emely and a few others came over to make and frost Christmas cookies.  It was quite an experience, since none had done it before.  The little 3 year old, Joel, went at it with great enthusiasm.  We had to mop the floor after they left!

They each took a plate of cookies home.  These are some of them.  The two in the bottom left corner are Elder Jones and me.  That was fun!

We have done a few projects for Christmas and appreciate those of you who contribute to our mission fund and make these projects possible.  We know that a few people here will be very happy tomorrow.

No one here has a real Christmas tree.  They are all fake.  But about 3 weeks ago we found a grove of trees that was far out of the way and cut a branch off one of them in a spot that would not be noticed.  Then when we got home we cut the small branches off and made a "bouquet" of branches, which became our Christmas tree.  I made a Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus out of clothes pins and pieces of cloth, and we have a beautiful but small tree.  

If you look closely you can see the wood snowman Daniel, our grandson, made me a few years ago.  I love it, and brought it with us to Chile as something to help me feel at home.  

In the main plaza of Ovalle is a really tall pine that is very old.  They decorate it every year for Christmas.  We have been told by several people that it is the tallest living Christmas tree in Chile, and the fourth tallest in South America.  

While out working on projects, we stopped to rest on a bench.  Elder Jones is wearing his tie that receives the most compliments--and was made by our Granddaughter, Florence, for him for Christmas last year. 

The Elders here love Elder Jones.  They call him "la maquina," which means "the machine."  He is a great role model for them.

We keep having earthquakes.  There was quite a big one a few weeks ago (5.8 centered in Ovalle).  I just looked on earthquaketrack.com which records all the earthquakes as they happen in the world.  In the last 20 days Ovalle has had 14 earthquakes of 4.2 or higher.    As of now, the one we had in September holds the record for the biggest in the world in 2015.  It was 8.3 in Illapel, but about 6.8 here.  

We had a great Zone Christmas activity on Tuesday.  The Zone Leaders and Elder Jones and I prepared the main course--which was turkey breast and funeral potatoes!  Others brought salads and desserts.  The smell of the turkey cooking brought up great memories for those missionaries who come from the states.  Elder Call had to explain what "papas funerales" were.  They definitely were a new taste to the missionaries from South America.  We cooked 28 potatoes and peeled and shredded them.  It was quite a project.  In most of the church kitchens either the oven doesn't work or there is no rack in it.  We took our oven rack and thankfully the oven worked so we could bake the potatoes.  It turned out great.  

This is a very different Christmas for us.  We will skype with our family on Saturday.  As a Zone of missionaries who are all far away from home, it means a lot to share gifts and feelings of love for each other.  We are each other's family here.    

I will close with a scripture I love from Mosiah 3:8:  

Y se llamara Jesucristo, el Hijo de Dios, el Padre del cielo y de la tierra, 

el Creador de todas las cosas desde el principio; y su madre se llamara Maria.  

In Ingles:

And he shall be called Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of heaven and earth, the Creator of all things from the beginning, and his mother shall be called Mary.

We love you all and hope Christ's light fills you with love today and always.

Elder y Hermana Jones