22 Dec-- Merry Christmas:)!!!!

Everyone has been asking what our Christmas plans are. Christmas Eve and Christmas day, we have a different schedule. We leave the house earlier and get home earlier. Our plans are: visit a few members that we know are gonna be alone on Christmas, anyone else who will let us into their house haha, and call our families!

I have a new companion who is from the Dominican Republic which speaks Spanish but when she speaks English she has a sick accent like she’s from the Bronx and she loves Beyonce and Rihanna so needless to say we are getting along just fine ;) She taught me what is called a “tubi” to keep your hair straight.

After straightening your hair, you part it on the side and wrap it around your head and hold it in place with bobby pins. Then you put on some kind of hair net or beanie or whatever you want (as long as it’s not something that sucks the moisture out of your hair and makes it static-y) and you’re good to go. We had to leave the house at 1 in the morning to board the bus that took us to Guadalajara, so when we got home at 9, we showered and got ready, packed a picnic lunch, and decided to sleep for a few minutes while we waited for the taxi…

Which never came!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That night we were part of a miracle because somehow I woke up at the last minute and we called another taxi and got to the bus station JUST BARELY in time. That night was a big holiday in Michoacan, so all the taxis were booked and everyone was out partying. I seriously felt soooooooo blessed. We got to hear Elder Russell M. Nelson and he shook everyone single one of the 500 missionary’s hands. It was such a special day and a great Christmas present!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All the missionaries of our mission (Guadalajara East) and the Guadalajara mission were there. I saw my old companions, and found out that the missionary I trained, Hermana Moran, is training. Wow!!! Que emocion!!!! It was sooooo great to see her. It was the closest thing to family that I have here in Mexico.

4 “generations”: my trainer, me, Hermana Moran, and her “daughter”

December 15: What is Christmas like in the mission?

In downtown Morelia

First off: I have the best family and friends ever. I’m definitely convinced. I’ve been convinced my whole life, but now it’s like a more-sure-about-this-than-I’m-sure-I’m –alive type of thing. Haha but seriously! We always get mail the first Friday of the month, but these past couple months we have also gotten it two other times and the point of my story is: There has not been one opportunity to get mail in which I have not gotten MORE THAN ONE letter! Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!! It is sooooo awesome to have that support and to hear news from home. Whatever you send, however boring the news may seem to you, it’s so interesting and important to me. Or if you don’t want to write, just email or mail me a picture! Those are bomb.

 

No it's not snowing. My camera's dirty. Haha

You’ve all been asking me how we are going to celebrate Christmas. I can't stop celebrating Christmas all day every day! Even though it’s nothing like the rest of the Christmases I'm used to, it’s wonderful. It is so easy to talk to people on the streets when you just have to bear your testimony of Christmas. It is so great to be on the Lord’s errand at Christmastime. We got treated to a meeting with an APOSTOL! Serious Christmas present. The neighbors put up Christmas lights and we have a poinsettia (they’re called “Christmas Eves” here).  I thought it was gonna be hard not to be home at Christmas butin reality there is nothing better than sharing the Gospel at Christmastime. That’s not to say that whenever some leader who’s speaking to missionaries mentions out families, I don’t cry. I do. I miss you all. But it’s not a sad time, Christmastime. It’s the best time of the year because it is filled with hope. The hope Jesus Christ brought to the world is alive. He is alive .His love reigns. Maybe it doesn’t seem like it at times with all the sadness and ugliness in the world, but if we could only see the whole picture, we wouldn’t doubt it.

This week, I invite you all to decide how you can more fully turn yourself over to the Lord. There are so many things we can do. The one thing we can truly give God is our will. It’s nice to give of our time or our resources, and I’m not saying don’t do that, but those things are already His to take when He wants. The one thing that doesn’t already belong to Him is our will, our agency. So turn yourself over to Him this month and you will find a new perspective, a new life-substance, new revelation. Turn yourself over to Him and make a goal. Maybe it will be something that just occurred to you while reading this, but more likely it will be something you’ve been wanting to do for a long time but never just made it happen.

News

Today we had transfers!!!! I'm staying here and I'm getting a new companion, from Domincan Republic, but we're waiting for her right now; I still don't know her.

This Saturday at 12 am I'm going to wake up to catch the bus to go to Guadalajara to listen to Elder Russell M. Nelson!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wow!!!!! It's awesome!!!! Our whole mission and the Guadalajara Mission-- some 500 missionaries.

1 Diciembre—El es la Dádiva

Well I am reading a few emails from y’all this week and everyone is talking about Thanksgiving… yeah that came and went without me hardly realizing it. Although on Saturday I decided to be more festive and I made a list of my blessings… :D ß that’s how I felt

And that’s how I still feel! Because there is something so exciting going on in the missionary world right now… soon to be “in the Christian world right now” because pretty soon everyone who believes in Jesus Christ will know about it! And even people who don’t.

This year in celebration of Christmas, the church launched a huge and I mean huge iniciative to help us all feel Christ at Christmastime. They made a seriously beautiful video called He is the Gift, and on Friday, they launched it on Youtube and on an amazing website called christmas.mormon.org. We got to spend an hour on this website this week (which is totally totally not normal!) and it was so beautiful! Spiritual feast!

mormon.org/Christmas/Story

 I didn’t even miss out on Thanksgiving haha. Starting today, the video will play on the screens in Times Square until January first :D And you all should go to Youtube this Sunday December 7, but I’m not gonna tell you why.

The scriptures say that the gospel will be carried to the four corners of the earth, that every nation will hear it in their own tongue. This year, 220 million people will see a 30-second version of the video. It’s really crazy and beautiful to live in this time, when prophecies are being fulfilled. I always pictured some big guy with a megaphone when I heard these scriptures, but now I realize how funny that is. It’s not gonna be anything like how I pictured. It’s going to be through means we already have—the internet, missionaries, and members of the church who invite their loved ones: one here, one there—until everyone has heard the gospel, the good news.

It is the best news I have in my life, and it’s important to me to help others feel it.

To my family and friends who are reading this, I love you a lot. You are in my thoughts a ton!!!! You are in my prayers. I am excited to come back and see you. I am learning how to receive the Gift for myself this week through some of the things I printed off from links I followed on the site christmas.mormon.org. The Gift make changes in my life—peace, hope, confidence, love—every day that I am willing to subject my own will to a Someone whose will is much bigger and wiser.

As Caitlin taught me, God is big and He is close.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

mormon.org/Christmas/Story