You Ate Turkey?

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! We had a good one!

But there were a few days this week before Christmas when we worked hard to find people to teach. We met this one family in the street outside their house, and they actually let us come in to show them some videos! They even had a DVD player. It was a miracle. They were super into what we showed them, so we're looking forward to seeing them again.

We also visited a family who we've been teaching for a while who is preparing for baptism. One of their sons has some problems with leg pain, and it's been tough for them. But last week we taught them about fasting. We told them that while we can always find answers to our prayers, we can also fast to show faith. We used a few examples that had to do with people who were ill and had miraculous recoveries.

 We went to visit them a couple days later and teach them about the Sabbath Day. We were teaching them when they started to ask more questions about fasting. They said that they want to fast for their son because they believe it will help him. We promised them that fasting can bring great blessings. It was a sweet experience to see that they had really understood what we had taught them before.

Then came Christmas. On Christmas Eve we talked to our families!

My family tells me that I have a Canadian accent when I speak English. I'm not sure how that happened, but I think it has to do with the vowels I've gotten used to pronouncing. My brother-in-law even told me that my Chewbacca impression has a Mexican accent. Interesting how we lose our English when we don't use it as often...

It was great to talk to my family, though. I'm so blessed to have them. :)

After talking with our families, we went to dinner with an awesome family in the ward who invited us. 

Mexican Culture Lesson with Hermana Clark:

Here in Mexico, people celebrate Christmas Eve way bigger than Christmas Day. They have huge dinners that last all night. They usually eat tamales and posole (it's a certain type of soup.)

Clark Culture Lesson with Hermana Clark:

In the Clark home, we celebrate Christmas Eve bigger than we celebrate Christmas Day. We all get together and eat enchiladas. Looks like my home growing up prepared me to celebrate a Christmas here! It also made things very convenient for my family to talk to me all together on Skype!

Spanish Lessons with Hermana Clark:

Pavo- turkey. As in, "I know I just told you that on Christmas Eve here they eat tamales and posole for dinner, but the members we ate with had a turkey dinner. When we told our mission president he didn't believe us."

Leña- wood. As in, "they authorized us to use our wood-burning stove yesterday because it got so cold."

Metas- goals. As in, "setting and keeping goals is how we progress and grow in life. If we set realistic yet challenging goals and ask for our Father in Heaven's help to accomplish them, we can see miracles.

Why did they authorize our wood-burning stove?

It snowed! It wasn't a lot by my standards, but it was enough to cancel church in most wards of our mission. Our District Leader called us at about 9am and told us that we weren't allowed to leave the house. We had to report to him every 3 hours to tell him that we hadn't frozen. So we were in our house all day yesterday studying and calling him every 3 hours to say "we're still alive." What a day.

I even took a picture of the snow...but I accidentally left my camera home today.

You'll have to wait till next week. :)

I hope everyone has a lovely New Year's! Set some good goals and get going on accomplishing them! Love you all!

 

~Hermana Hannah Jo Clark