Sunday, February 5, 2006, 22:29 hours

Ashley Florence McAllister, welcome to the family!! So I have a new baby niece and she’s healthy and so his her mother. This was a big relief (for some reason I was uncommonly worried). So my niece and nephew count has reached… (let me count… 4 + 4 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 1/2) 12 with one on the way. Here’s some of her information and picture from the new Dad’s email:

Name: Ashley Florence McAllister
Born: 04 February 2006 @ 11:47 pm
Weight: 8 lbs. 14 ounces
Length 20.5 inches

Mom, Dad, and Ashley are all very sleepy, but doing great!

I didn’t get mom’s email until after church, so before the great news most of my day had already passed.

When you’re prepared, you don’t fear.

I got to church fifteen minutes early and made copies of the flier I made so they could be given to the bishops of neighboring wards to advise their members of the CASP class on the 21, 22 and 23rd off this month.

It felt great being prepared. And it’s great to help people fulfill their callings, instead of working around or above them. Márcia Pickler is the stake employment specialist and Mária (something) is our ward specialist and they both attend the Kobrasol ward (my ward), so we got to talk w/ them a bit and mark a later day to sit down and share the plans we have made so they can be more involved and help make the appropriate people aware.

Dave woke up feeling sick – sun poisoning, maybe. Whatever it was, he felt a bit nauseous, but he made it on time for all of church.

I was given a home teaching companion and 5 families today. The brother seemed a little nervous to be with me, as he quickly told me he has only been home teaching two times, so I told him we would learn together :o), but thanks to my dad (and the mission) I have had plenty of practice and experience.

Last Sunday a very nice sister invited us to eat lunch at their house this Sunday, so after church they patiently waited for us to finishing talking with leaders and such and they gave us a ride to their apartment. I forget the sister’s name… but her husband is Rubens, they have 3 kids – one is soon to be returning from his mission (São Paulo Norte), Rubens is 18, and Tiago is 16. Awesome family! Very funny – the father has this serious exterior appearance, but you soon figure out it’s his way of being funny. Tiago is a musically talented kid, and taught me how to correctly hold and play the violin (I managed to squeak out the basic cords… and it wasn’t as bad as I’m sure you’re imagining) and his trombone – which was actually pretty fun and I picked up pretty fast. I all of a sudden wished I would have listened to my mother and played some sort of musical instrument as a kid… but then I wonder what I would have had to give up to practice it, and I think I’m okay not knowing :o). Hey, I can still learn if I wanted.

Lunch was Brazilian stroganoff (a peachish color sauce with chicken, corn, and other good stuff served on top of white rice), lettuce and tomatoes, another veggie dish, Lime-aid, and watermelon and a ‘sweet corn’ dish for dessert.

In the afternoon I took a nice nap completely through the Oct. Priesthood session on DVD I was going to watch, ate some chicken fingers, and then actually watched the session awake – in Spanish.