Week 50: Glory to the Newborn King
Feliz Navidad a todos! I hope you all had a very merry Christmas and that you can continue to feel the spirit of the season and the importance of the birth of Christ throughout the week!
On Tuesday the secretaries came over to give us our fridge! Finally. Our fridge is much newer than the other ones and because it has cup holders and even an ice cube tray! After that we got a very expensive taxi (I don't have any more travel money because of our old trio) to the mission home to have a zone Christmas party with President and Hermana Hiatt. We had a small talent show portion and I played the arrangement of "Angels We Have Heard on High" that I've been practicing recently that I also just shared on my Facebook. I played it well, I think. Afterwards one of the new American elders who just started his mission played the piano too and I'll just say it was a good thing I went first. The more people I meet the more I realize I'm just a swiss army knife of a person. Good at a lot of things, not the best at any of them. But he's insanely good and awesome to listen. We got a tour of the house and saw a rug for the first time in a while. We had lunch which was turkey and dessert which were picarones. Afterwards we had a little devotional section where we read the Christmas story and sang almost all the Christmas hymns. We got a little gift box of chocolates and a trifold of pictures of all the missionaries in the mission (which apparently is another thing we're not supposed to do so I guess we won't be doing that again). We couldn't find a reasonably priced taxi so we walked for 20 minutes to the bus station with all the elders from Distrito El Milagro and ended up riding back on a burning hot bus for 40 minutes. Pretty fun day.
Wednesday I went on exchanges with Elder Sorensen, my comp from the CCM. We talked a lot got lessons cancelled, did a little finding, and even reviewed some old photos and videos from our time in the CCM. Man we were crazy. Was a good time to talk about the mission.
On Friday we had the Christmas activity for our ward and decided to do the same dance. This time our whole district was there so Elder Palacios and Elder Huaman joined in. Our friends Angelo and Briget came to the activity too, which was cool. One of the activities we did was walk around in a circle while the quorum de elderes played Jingle Bells, with our bishop playing the drums. I got into it, just like my chicken dance a few weeks ago. Sometimes you just got to own it. A bunch of on lookers started watching (we were doing it outside) so we walked over to them to present ourselves as missionaries, but they weren't interested. We then had to walk extremely fas back to our apartment to make in time for a mission devotional we had over zoom.
And really for me on Christmas Eve and Christmas day there wasn't much to do. We really couldn't proselyte like normal unless we were invited to, so we did what we could and then I listened to my Christmas music. Actually on Christmas Eve Indoamerica had the baptism of hermano Jean. This one was really cool because I was the one who found him a few months ago when we were meeting with an inactive member, hermana Deisi. She came with her family. Hermano Jean's testimony is strong and he was confirmed on Christmas. Our pensionista gave us pig for pretty much every meal, which I'm not complaining. That night we had a movie night over zoom, and we watched an episode of The Chosen. I was happy about that. It was the one about the wedding feast. I stayed up a little bit after Elder Ochoa went to sleep to prepare his gift. I used an old gift bag from Elder Cabrera's birthday back in August and put in it some stuff and covered it with some grocery bags. I woke up a little bit at midnight because of all the fireworks. I was dead tired, so maybe I'll catch them at new years.
Christmas morning I listened to my Christmas music while doing some extra study. We had a combined sacrament meeting with Indoamerica. I was disappointed because none of the investigators that said they were going to come came. Also last Thursday I asked bishop if we were actually going to sing Christmas songs on Christmas, because we hadn't sung a single Christmas song in sacrament meeting all of December. He showed me the program, and it had the opening hymn as "We Thank Thee oh God for a Prophet" with a special hymn of "Silent Night" in the middle and a closing hymn of "Silent Night." Because the youth who play the songs down here only know how to play about 10 different songs in the hymn book, and the only Christmas song one of them know is Silent Night. Knowing that I play the piano he asked me to play a song for the rest hymn. I joyfully accepted. I didn't end up knowing which one I was to play until the moment of, which ended up being Joy to the World. After the meeting eceryone got their paneton (which I skipped) and mango juice. We headed back to the apartment, talked with family, and kind of hung out for the rest of the day because there was nothing we could do. I bought some ritz on Christmas eve so we could eat the manjar that hermano Enrique gave us. We had another mission movie night and watched more of the Chosen! This Christmas felt a bit different, which it was. That's something you just gotta do. But I've realized that to me snow and cold weather are musts for it to feel like Christmas.
Pday today we met as a district at hermano Anthony's house and talked for a while before he took us to lunch. I got some arroz con mariscos, which is rice with a bunch of shrimp and other seafood bits in it.
CHRISTMAS MESSAGE:
Without the majority of the normal Christmas festivities that always made Christmas feel like Christmas has given me a bit more time to think and read about the Savior more and his miraculous birth. I also listened to a lot a Christmas music and the second verse of Hark the Herald Angels Sing really stuck out to me:
"Hail the heav’n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
Ris’n with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die;
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Hark! the herald angels sing
Glory to the newborn King!"
Every line in this verse is so powerful. Take a second to read each one and think about how Christ is, fulfills, or exhibits those words. Listening to Gentri's version really made me know that Jesus really is the Christ and that He is the answer to everything, is in every aspect of our lives, and can help us in every way possible. If you read and thought about each of the lines in the verse you'll know what I mean.
He is the Prince of Peace, the Son of Righteousness, the Light and Life of the world, the Master Healer, Glorious, the Savior, the Redeemer, and the Resurrection.
He is the King of all.
Merry Christmas and have a fantastic week!
1. Elder Ochoa and I
2. Exchanges with Elder Sorensen
3. Christmas came early!
4. Ilumina el Mundo
5. Trujillo
6. Pday food
7. Hermano Jean
8. Ritz and manjar
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