December 29

You should be getting a bunch of Christmas photos and a video of some puppies if I can get it to load.

Notes on pictures: the landscape is from where we went caroling (I can´t see this far every day), the tree is plastic and is in the house of our pensionista (anavel), she is the one on the phone, the Bolivia bag was my gift in our gift swap, the one with marker on our faces is from a Family Home Evening we did ( shared a scripture and talked about it and then played some games. the punishment for losing was getting something drawn on your face), the puppies belong to Loyda, who is a recent convert and also our pensionista for lunch or saturdays and sundays. 

The rest of Christmas was very quiet, which was a nice rest. I got to spend a lot of time reading Jesus the Christ. We had dinner with the elders and Hna Anavel´s family, but it wasn´t a particularly special meal. I don´t think I got too homesick, but with Hna Aliaga going home in a month, it´s hard not to think about home too. 

I´m sure the last week or so of Jan will be a bit nuts with Hna Aliaga leaving, but at the moment the only difference is that she has a lot of other people´s recuerdos (memory scrapebook things) to write in and will want me to write in hers. I get that people want pictures and contact info and a nice note from each other, but I can never think of anything to write. 

With Pdays, the first two here were by far the most eventful. Generally we just get lunch somewhere new, clean the house, and write home. We also often go to the cancha, which is a huge market with just about everything. We are required to take a member with us to help us not get stolen from or lost (really the place is huge and busy). Today for example we spent ages finding a new wrist band cord for Hna Aliaga´s camera, more toliet paper (becuase it´s cheaper there than in the corner stores near our house), and I found some mint tea. We went with Hna Hinton and Hna Morales, who are our sister training leaders and a member of their ward. Hna Hinton is going home soon and was buying lots of souvenirs and a complete ¨chorlita¨ outfit, this includes a skirt with lots of pleats/folds, a lacey pastel blouse that is too short, an apron, and a liner-thing (there´s a word for that, a thing you wear under a shear dress). She was going to get a sun hat too, but it would be hard to transport home. 

As I was starting to explain the other day, The main different is not is different shades of skin color, but those who dress in a more western, modern style, and ¨chorlitas¨ who wear the traditional skirt and top and tend to be poorer and less well educated. I´m sure you can find some pictures online. I don´t really understand all the cultural and social background, but there´s definitely a difference.