El mono de nieve

 Feliz Navidad

New word I learned this week - POSADA. Shoutout to gramham y mi madre for the most awesome 12 days or Christmas activities. My comp and I love them.

GOOD:

- We visited one of our most powerful member missionaries this week. Her name is Hna Esperanza and she is from Perú! She is so good at sharing the gospel with her friends and is setting up lessons with 2 of her friends to come and meet with us to learn the gospel! We were saying a prayer with her before we left and as soon as the word "Amen" slipped out of my mouth she shouts "TENGO JUMEX!" (I have Jumex) she then runs inside and returns with 2 cans of juice for us. What a kind soul. 

- The missionaries of the Hidalgo ward did service for Hna Alaniz this week and it was very comical. She invited 6 of us to help her with her yard and once we arrived we found out her yard tools consisted of... 1 weed eater. We did a quick lawn mower search by visiting her neighbors and were still able to help her out. Afterwards, she fed us flautas so it was most definitely worth it.

- New transfer = new district = dance break get to know you game at District Council.  Very impressed with the talent within my new district, hahaha. No but for reals we are super excited for this new transfer!

BETTER:

- We have been teaching Kevin, Amy and their mom Ingrid and this week they accepted a goal Baptismal Date for January. They have some learning to do before that so pray for them. I love teaching families. Also check out their Christmas Tree - it's a snowman. The Spanish word they use down here for snowman is "Mono de Nieve '' which directly translates to snowmonkey. 

- We meet people all the time and the valley folk never cease to put a smile on my face but this phone call blew my mind. We met a man named Cesar, had a quick conversation with him and shared a pamphlet with him about the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The next day we called him to follow up on his reading and I kid you not, I think he taught us every principle that is in that pamphlet. I was shocked while he was reciting definitions at me and speaking with such excitement. Just a testament that there are always people who are so ready to learn and accept the gospel.

- We are still waiting on our friend Lino to make it back to Hidalgo. We have hope that we will be in contact with us within the next few days! 

- La fiesta de Navidad was this week! Our ward had an amazing Christmas party complete with tamales, frijoles y buñuelos. Also, our friends Rosy and Lionely totally surprised us and showed up! They got to know the ward members and even participated in the activities! On the way out they asked to see where we have Sacrament meeting so we were able to show them around the church! Never have I ever loved being called a guerro until I met Rosy.

BEST:

We had an AMAZING Sunday school lesson this week at church. We were talking about sacrifice as we studied Malachi. 

We discussed how sacrifice looks different to everyone. While it might be very easy for one person to sacrifice 2 hours for church it could be very difficult for another to do the same. Each person has to understand for themselves what is a meaningful sacrifice because a sacrifice is hollow if it is not ACTUALLY a sacrifice. I hope I am making sense. It is the idea that we each must continually be sacrificing unto the Lord what we can to show our love and devotion. We can sacrifice our time, our talents, our pride, our sins - we can sacrifice a lot. By doing so we can show how much we love our Heavenly Father.

I invite you to avoid getting comfortable with a shallow sacrifice. Our Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ have truly sacrificed so much for us, and they ask that we devote ourselves to them in return. 

What can you sacrifice this week?

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

FELIZ NAVIDAD!!!

"Work Hard, Keep the Commandments, Have a Positive Attitude and Show Gratitude."

- Elder Stringcheese