Skyping Home, Merry Christmas, Yeah!

Hola Everybody!  This week has been a pretty good one!  It has had some very high points, and also some pretty low points, as every week does.  It just gives us a lot of work to do in the coming weeks to try and make up for it, so wish us luck!  :D 

On Monday we had a lesson with Michelle Rios and Liliana after all of our P-day activities.  We talked about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it was actually a very good lesson.  It was great to be able to have Michelle share her feelings on the Gift of the Holy Ghost and to be able to testify to Liliana of the reality of the gospel and its principles.  After that lesson, we quickly walked down to the Solorio Family's place and we had a brief lesson.  Elder Norris was kind of upset at me when I called on him on the spot to share a scripture, but later he understood why I did that: so that he is able to help others feel the Spirit with very short notice, and so he can call on the Spirit himself!  But the lesson was great as we were both able to share our feelings about Christ, sharing why it was that he was born and why it was so special.  It was great!  The Spirit was so strong!

Tuesday was another really great day, too!  We had a Zone Training Meeting at the church, including a zone lunch and trainings presented by the Zone Leaders and the Sister Training Leaders.  A while later (the meeting was kind of long) we contacted a referral given to us by Brother Arcos, and we found this man named Juan, who was from Honduras.  He let us right in and we commenced in talking about Christmas and our various family traditions, and then I shared a scripture from the Book of Mormon.  After that, he asked about the book, and we gave a brief history, comparing it with the Bible.  He was fascinated!  He was so interested in the book, and all like "This makes so much sense!"  (He said that in Spanish of course).  We're excited to see where that goes!  Later, we had a dinner appointment with the Gonzalez family, followed by a lesson with the Nieves family, prepping them for their upcoming baptism on the 27th!

Christmas Eve was a pretty good day, consisting of our studies in the morning, Weekly Planning at the church, and then going to a bunch of dinner appointments!  The first one was at Luis Munoz's house, and the funny part was that it was us and the 4 sister missionaries that were invited!  The sisters had found out that we had a Tamales dinner appointment (a traditional Mexican food) and so they wanted to come, so we asked and Luis's mom said SURE!  So we all were there and ate for a while, and I got to serve as a translator for the Sisters in their conversation with Luis's family.  The sisters left after a bit, and we stayed and shared a message with them using Alma 7: 10-13, a testimony of Christ, his birth, his suffering, and his love for us.  It was really good!  However, our second appointment could have been better...  I only say that because the other Elders who invited us neglected on getting a male present, so it was just us 4 missionaries and 3 women.  Not okay.  Elder Norris and I weren't very happy about it, and because it was Christmas Eve and we were WAY far away from where we lived, there was nothing we could do about it.  So we just sat there awkwardly until it was over, and then we got a ride home.

CHRISTMAS on Thursday was a great day!  In the morning, the GB1 Elders came over to our house and we all opened presents together!  :D  How cute!!!  Kinda...  But it was awesome!  I then made Breakfast and we ate together, and then Elder Norris and I stayed at the apartment and cleaned up and stuff until just before 1:00, when we had an appointment with the Rios family to go over and Skype home.  So, we got to their place at 1 and after a while of tinkering with their computer, we reached the conclusion that the Skype application was not working...  So, we ate lunch with them at that time, and then we got one of their cell phones and used that to Skype.  Elder Norris went first, and while he was talking to his family, I was making cookies with the kids in the family, and playing games like Connect 4 and Sorry.  :)  Then, it was my turn to Skype!  It was awesome to see my family and to be able to talk to them because I LOVE THEM SO MUCH!  The only thing that wasn't fair is that they were at Disneyland...  Yeah, kinda jealous...  :P  But that's okay, I still love them.  We talked for 40 minutes, which flew by like nothing else, and then Elder Norris and I shared some scriptures and messages with the family, having a gospel discussion with some of the kids, and that's how we ended our visit there.  After that, we went home and then went over to Luis's house and got a ride over to the church and played basketball with Luis and some of his friends for the rest of the night!  :D

Skyping is Awesome!

Friday, we had our service to do at St. Vinny's, but before we went over there we stopped by the Nieves family's place and talked to them about the plans for the baptism, and everything sounded like it was going great!  They were excited and everything was working out!  Then, we went to service and were there for just over 2 hours, and then we went to the church to have a lesson with the Nieves family to have them try on the baptismal jumpsuits and to practice the baptism, but then they didn't show up.  The worst part was that we had Luis and Sister Rios all show up to be member presents, but the Nieves family didn't ever come!  So what we did was that I practiced a musical number with the GB2 Sisters for the baptism instead...  To close off the night though, we made a whole bunch of visits to a bunch of friends that lived between the church and our place.  But that was our night!  We went to bed pretty worried because we hadn't heard from Lisa or the family, we had only talked to her mother who told us that she hadn't heard from her either.

Saturday morning we didn't know if the baptismal service was going to happen or not, so we packed our clothes just in case (all of our white clothes) and took them to the church at 10, and then we walked over to the Nieves family's place and tried them again, to no avail.  So, we went across the street to her mom's place and were informed that way that the baptismal service was NOT going to occur, so we started then to make a whole bunch of phone calls to cancel everything.  It was really sad that we had to do that, especially because we have NO idea why she changed her mind last minute, but even still, we now have a new challenge ahead of us so we're excited for that!  The rest of that day was pretty dismal though.  We were both pretty upset that the baptism had been cancelled, but we still taught some lessons and did our best to not let it get to us...  But still, it was sad.

And for Sunday, we had church at 9 in the morning for the last time!  The branch is going to start at 11 in 2015 so we're pretty excited about that!  Later in the day, we went over to the Ramirez's house (Monkey and his family) and I had Elder Norris teach them one of the first 3 lessons, so he chose the Plan of Salvation and taught the family in Spanish so that he could practice, and he did very good!  :D  Later in the day, we had a dinner appointment, and we also taught some other lessons to other people.

One thing that I've loved the most about this Christmas season is just the opportunity to testify of Chrsit, His Birth, and His Atonement.  Most people know of His suffering, but they still don't know why it had to happen.  The Atonement had to happen so Christ could secure our salvation.  Many people say the He saved us from sin, which is kind of true.  We each sin, but because of the atonement that He made, the effects of sin won't effect us forever.  But the reason we celebrate Christmas is because Christ came into the world to secure our salvation.  His entire purpose was to perform the atonement, and I love the job that I have as a missionary to share that with others.  I love each of you so much, and I hope that you all have a great new year!  :D

--Elder Nate Hubert