Merry Christmas Eve everybody!! Young mom recognized my face before she saw my name!

Hey Merry Christmas Eve everybody!!      Wow its hard to believe that Christmas is already here!  I am super excited to be able to talk to you all tomorrow!!!  Its going to be awesome!!  Its been a great week before Christmas here in Vera Cruz.  There's that great buzz around the city as everybody is getting more excited for Christmas and the buildings and houses are decked out with decorations and Christmas lights.  On Saturday our branch had a special Christmas activity.  It ended being a great turnout with a lot of members and family members and even some investigators that we invited.  The party started with musical performances by the primary and the young men, and then the branch president asked me and Elder Fernandes to do a number.  We sang the same song that our district had been practicing for the Christmas Conference, the one that the ZL wrote.  Haha I think that it was quite a bit better when the whole district sang it together with the accompaniment of the piano because we started on a note that made the song reeeeeeeeeeally high!   haha but the members liked it and it was fun  Then we got the special visit of Santa Claus!  or Papai Noel in Portuguese.  All of the kids were super excited to talk to him and he gave them all candy!  It was cool because I recognized Santa as the nephew of Jaci, one of our investigators that we have been visiting, so it was good for him to show up to a church activity.  After that we all enjoyed a huuuuuuuuge Churrasco!  Haha it was great and everyone was definitely satisfied.
     Its also the beginning of a new transfer here and while both me and Elder Fernandes stayed for another transfer, there have been a lot of changes in our district.  There is a new sister, ZL, and also now we have a new DL named Elder Da Costa.  He seems like a really funny and cool guy.  He was in the same district as Sister Gee back in the day and talks a lot about her, maybe you remember him Jamie.  Oh and also something that was cool happened while I was in Santa Cruz.  The DL wasn't available to do a baptismal interview for the ZL´s so the president allowed Elder Fernandes to go there to do it and while he did that I worked with the new ZL in Santa Cruz for an hour or so.  We knocked doors for most of the hour until we went to an appointment with one of their investigators.  She was a young mom named Tati and when she saw me she asked me if I had a relative that served a mission here because I looked just like the sister that began teaching her.  I asked her if it was Sister Gee that began teaching her, but she said she couldn't remember her name, but then I showed her a picture of Jamie and she got really excited and said that was the one!  She told me to send a hug to you Jamie.  The ZL´s said that she is starting to go to church every week now and that she is progressing really well.  Haha its really cool to see that your work here is still continuing and making a difference in people's lives.  Also that night we got to see a little bit of the Christmas activity there and yet again I met a handful of people that wanted to talk to me about Sister Gee.  Haha cool stuff!
     Wow its going to be sooooo cool to talk to you guys in just a little bit more than 24 hours!!!  I hope all you have an awesome Christmas together and can always remember the true meaning of Christmas.  But that's all for now  I love you all a ton and will talk to you very soon!!  Woohoo!!

      Love,  ELDER Gee