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| Our little Christmas tree that my family sent us |
We've been fairly busy this week, which has been awesome! On
Wednesday, we had zone conference, which was super cool. Sister Phillips talked
to us about Christmas, and got us excited about getting other people excited to
celebrate this amazing time of year! She also gave each of us presents with
unique, personal notes for every single missionary. There are over 180 missionaries
in the mission, and I can't imagine how long she must have worked on it! She's
so amazing. After zone conference, we visited with Fransisco, who is doing
alright. He still isn't going to church which has been so frustrating for us!
We try to help him all we can, but at times there is nothing you can do. We
also had a lesson with a new investigator, Marcela, who is from Columbia and
was really cool. She's super interested, and we will be seeing her again this
week!
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| My present from Sister Phillips |
Thursday was very busy, and also extremely cold. We had district
meeting which was awesome. We spent an entire 20 minutes, at the office, planning
out our route for that night very carefully (we have to be at the mission
office to map things out during the week, so we can use the computers). We also
had our interviews with President Phillips. He's so amazing, and extremely
spirit-driven. It's so inspiring to watch him work! Then we left and went to a
dinner appointment, which sadly fell through, so we had to go home to eat
really quickly. Then we went ALL the way down South for one appointment with a
new investigator that went really well. But we had to be quick to catch the bus
to go all the way up north for another appointment, and the bus was coming very
soon. While we were walking (more like running) to the bus stop, I was praying
a little bit that we would be able to make that bus. Sadly, as we ran towards
it, and were about to be close enough for the driver to see us, it drove off. I
was sure that we were going to be very late to our next appointment, which
always makes me a bit upset and stressed. And to top it off, it was later in
the night when busses come maybe every 20-30 minutes or so. But, somehow,
another bus on the same line came almost immediately behind the one that left,
and we were able to get on! And, through many other bus miracles, we made it to
the appointment 2 minutes early! It doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, but
when you know how terrible the Montréal bus system can be (especially while
there is a ton of snow), there is no way to say that it's not a miracle! I was
thinking that night when we got home about how it's similar to our answers to
our prayers. I was praying that I would be able to make that first specific
bus, but we weren't able to. But, my prayer was answered, just not in a way
that I expected. That's how it is more often than not when we receive answers
to our prayers, at times the answer is either not what we expected, or what we
wanted. But God always knows more than we do, and although we might not know
why things happen the way they do, He always does things only for our benefit
in the long run.
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| SNOW everywhere, every day. I love it--my companion doesn't! |
Friday was a bit slow, as Elder Durgante had gotten sick the
night before and needed to sleep a bit. But we still had a few great
appointments! We went to a new member's house for lunch, the Leon family, who
just moved in from Guatemala. They are so nice, and have two daughters serving
missions, so they really wanted to feed us! We then went to teach a former
investigator, Alecia, who is 15 years old and wants to take the lessons again.
Her mom is a less active member, and she really wants to be baptized! We will
be working with them closely these upcoming weeks. We then headed over to visit
Nicole, which was awesome as usual. We made sure she was all ready for her
interview today, and she's so excited to be baptized this Saturday! It's going
to be so much fun!
Saturday was an interesting day, as we did a lot of
different things than usual. We passed by a couple of people in the morning,
then helped a man move an oven from someone's house to his. We were given the
job from our zone leaders, who said they got the job from some sisters that
knew his mom, but neither of those teams could do it so they passed him off to
us. They said that he spoke Spanish, but instead, he was Indian! He luckily
spoke some English though, so communicating wasn't that hard. We helped him
move this oven, which actually took a LONG time, so we weren't able to do much
else that day. We still don't know how they got a hold of missionaries, because
apparently, they aren't taking lessons or anything, and didn't know much about
the LDS church. But it was an awesome opportunity to do service, which is
always good! We also got to go to the Ward Christmas party that night, which
was so amazing, and EXTREMELY Hispanic. It was so fun! The food was AMAZING and
we had tons of it. They even wrapped up a lot to send home with us--which was
awesome.
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| TONS of stuff from the amazing members of the Zarahemla Ward! |
This past Sunday was really great. We were able to do tons
of logistical work for Nicole's baptism, and we have the schedule all worked
out and finalized. It's going to be awesome! We also were told before sacrament
meeting to go to the Relief Society class to sing a Christmas song before the
end of the last meeting. We were a bit weirded out by it, but we went anyway.
Then, while we were singing, they all came in holding boxes and bags FULL of
food, presents and other stuff for each of the teams of missionaries! It was so
thoughtful! The sisters in our ward were absolutely sobbing which was funny,
but I was just happy that I have real cereal now! We didn't even have to do
shopping today, since there was so much (about 60 pounds)! (They took a
picture, and I told one of the members to send it to me, but I haven't gotten
it yet. I'll send it next week when I get it!) The whole ward pitched in! I
love our members so much; they're so awesome and thoughtful. After figuring out
how we were going to get it all home (a member so kindly offered to deliver it
to each of the three teams of missionaries), we left and went to a DA with a
Dominican family in our ward, the Amador family. We ate dinner there, and it
was so good! They're such a funny family, and love teaching me Dominican
words. We then went to visit Hermano
Mendoza, who we sadly weren't able to see earlier. He doesn't get many
visitors, but we're going to visit him on Christmas Eve, and another time this
week, to make sure he is doing okay! Then we went home, the member delivered
the food, and we put it all away. Such an amazing day!
Monday was fairly good, and not very busy. We finally did
weekly planning, which took up the vast majority of the day. After that, we did
some contacting on the bus and metro for a while, and then went up to Jesus and
Yeni. Sadly, they forgot about our meeting (probably my fault since I didn't
confirm), and they weren't there. I'll make sure not to make that mistake
again! We then did a bit more contacting, and then went home. Pretty slow day,
but at least we got our weekly planning done, which is important.
Everything is going well, and I'm so excited for this
Christmas in the field! We've already started planning out the people we want
to see, making sure that no time is wasted! It's so amazing being out here at
this time, and it's awesome to be able to focus almost 100% on others the entire
season.
Love you all, and I hope you all have a Merry Christmas!
Elder James
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