The spirit of Christ(mas)

Hello family, friends, strangers, and anybody else who might be reading this.  :)  I love you all!  Life is such a great thing.  Before I share the occurrances of my week, I'd love to share a little spiritual message with you.  :)

So, during our District Meeting on Christmas Eve, Elder Shipp (my companion) challenged all of us to read part of the Doctrina y Convenios every day as a part of our studies, and promised us that we would receive the blessings that the scriptures had for us.  So, through my studies, I have realized a very incredible message.  In DyC 31, it tells us an incredible message of how we should feel about our missions.  It says in verse 3:  "Lift up your heart and rejoice, for the hour of your mission has come."  We have such a reason to rejoice, and though it is hard at times, our hearts are still lifted by the prayers of the people of the world, and by the blessings of Heaven we are lifted as well.  And with that extra help that we have, we go forward.  As it says in DyC 128:22 "Go forward, and not backward.  Courage brethren, and on, on to the victory!"  It goes on to speak of more things that we should do, but my favorite is the first line, that says "Shall we not go on in so great a cause?"  Because we shall, and we will, and some of us ARE going forth in this great cause.  This gospel is true.  Let us go forward, not backward.  Let us go forth in this great cause and in our great God, for in Him we have great reason to rejoice.  :)  

But, onto my week.  This week has been super super great!  I have definitely seen miracles in my life this week.  As we began the week, we had the thoguht that because it was the Holiday season, that people weren't going to be willing to have us in their houses, so our weekly goal for lessons was a bit lower than it usually had been.  But, after much deliberation, we changed that goal to be the same as usual because we knew that God would make it possible for us to teach that many people, especially in this time of year. 

Tuesday was Christmas Eve!  And on Christmas Eve, we went to go contact a less-active family in the morning after our studies, and then we shared a Christmas message with them, gave them the Joy to the World video, and talked to him about Church Attendance.  But after that, we went to our 3-hour Christmas Eve District meeting!  it was actually pretty good.  Elder Shipp, during his training, had us go around and one-at-a-time share our favorite Christmas Miracle in our lives, our favorite story of Christ, and our favorite revelation by Joseph Smith.  It was great to be able to hear everybody's different insights and that we were able to learn so much from each other.  But after all of that, we went in and met with the other districts.  We sang some Christmas Hymns and we had a cookie-exchange and a potluck with 10 pizzas that somebody brought.  It was really great.  :D  But after everybody had left, we waited around for a person from the 4th ward who had made us some personalized stockings, which was super sweet of them to do for us, and then we walked over to the Sanchez house with the other Spanish elders, and spent a little bit of time with the people there before getting a ride back to our apartment.  :)

FELIZ NAVIDAD!  Today was Christmas!!!  :D  We woke up at 6:30, and we came out of our aprtment in the freezing cold, and went right over to the English elders' apartment to spend Christmas Morning with them.  We listened to the Christmas Story that Elder Wise had as a recording, and then after waking up a little more fully, we opened up some presents.  And let me say thank you so much for all of the amazing gifts that were sent our way!  Thank you to everybody who thought of us out here - they are greatly appreciated.  :)  I love you all!!!

Then, after all of that was taken care of, we got to go back to our apartment and put some things away before boarding the bus and going over to the Heaton's house.  As soon as we got there, I got put in a room with an iPad that had Skype on it, so I called my family.  AND then for the next hour I had an incredible time talking to them!  I love my family so much - thanks so much for the incredible opportunity to be able to talk to you guys!!!  :)  But as soon as that was done, I spent some time playing with their son Reed and playing some board games and puzzles with Brother and Sister Heaton.  But eventually, after an amazing dinner and dessert, we got a ride home and that brought an end to our day.  But really, the spirit of the day was really great, and I was so happy to be able to focus on my family that day.  It was great!  :D

Thursday we had lots of appointments set up, but most of them fell through...  it was pretty funny though.  We went over to an apartment complex where we had 3 lessons set up to teach, but all of them fell through!  But, as we were wandering away, we ran into our homeless friend Francisco that we met my first day!  We said HI and started talking, but then he gave my his tricycle to walk around and we went to his house and on the way, he would wrip open everybody's garbage and take out all of the cans, despite all of the other trash, all because he wanted to sell the cans for a few bucks.  It was pretty sad, so I was pretty happy we got to help him.

Later, we went and contacted a referral who said that he had served a mission for our church, but when we got into his house not knowing what to think, he pulled out his old mission badge!  So, he is actually a member!  But he has tons of health issues and is basically waiting to die, and because of all of those problems he can't come to church or do anything that has to do with going out of the house, but we are going to see if the Bishop can help us get Sacrament to his house on Sundays.  But, this man still admits that his mission was probably the greatest thing that has ever happened in his life, because basically as soon as it ended, he hit a rock wall with his health, but he's lived a pretty long life of 70ish years, and is just about done living.  I hope that we can do something to help him out though!

Friday we had exchanges day, and I was fortunate enough to go with Elder Campbell!  We only had one appointment to go to that day, and it was right in the middle of regular-study time, but the person wasn't even home when we got there.  Instead, we got yelled at by another man whose house we accidentally buzzed into, who yelled at us by saying that "I haven't gotten a wrong number phone call in 14 years, but now I've gotten 2 from you!"  So, after that encounter that made me laugh a bit, we left...  And  the rest of the day, we had studies to do, which were great.  I love the fact that we have set apart time to study every day.  It really is such an incredible way to start out the day, I highly recommend it.  :)  

Saturday was a good day too!  But unfortunately we weren't able to have studies because we had Correlation Meeting like we do every Saturday.  During Correlation we talked about all of the things that we have worked on, and all of the thigns that the ward can help us with.  So, with the help of the ward, things might start to look even more upward, because they have a huge influence on what we do out here.  But after Correlation, we went over to Casildo's place with a member, Bro. Hinckley, but he wasn't able to meet with us because he was working on his car.  Just after that, we got picked up by Bro. Allen, who went with us to another lesson, but that also fell through because the person was doing their laundry and was very occupied.  But, since Bro. Allen had some time, he went back with us over to Casildo's house, who didn't even answer the door.  I hope that we are still able to teach him though!  I really hope that he starts progressing, too.  But, during the day, we got a text from our Zone Leaders letting us know that we as a mission, for the first time in the history of the mission, have reached the goal of 300 Baptisms this year, in the year of 2013.  It might not seem like a lot, but for our mission, that is HUGE!  It has NEVER been done before!!!  So, it is a magnificent accomplishment!  :)

Then, we decided to go over to our other lesson with a woman named Veronica, and though the lesson wasn't super long, we gave her a powerful lesson on the Restoration, and by the time that we were done, and were walking away from her house, both Elder Shipp and I had an overwhelming feeling that we knew that she would someday be baptized.  I know she will.  I just hope that I am able to help her get closer to that point.  :)

Then, we went over to Oscar's house to have one last meeting, and on the way there I was able to be very bold in telling a man about our beliefs.  He asked me what we believed, and I told him in the brief time that we were on the bus, and he had some questions about modern day prophets, to which I used the Book of Mormon and being super bold to tell him.  The thing he told me right before he got off, when I gave him the book, was that he probably wouldn't believe in what I had said, but that he would read the book, consider it, and pray about it.  I hope that he really does!  

But at Oscar's house, we talked to him about his life, about how he needs to come to church, about how he needs to be baptized, and then he had me fix a whole bunch of problems on his computer because he couldn't do it because he couldn't read English.  But our visit went really well, and now he's planning on coming to church!  :D

Well, before I go, I just wanted to say sorry if I am a bit vague...  I am really short on time but I promise I am trying my hardest.  If you have any specific questions for me, please don't hesitate to shoot me an email or a letter and ask me those questions!  I'd love to hear from anyone!  :D

Love you all!!

--Elder Nate Hubert

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Elder Nathan Hubert