On the sports court across from his house on Christmas Eve in great weather!
Inside his house
Christmas Eve Dinner
Christmas Eve with a ward family
Christmas Eve with the Elders
Christmas Eve with the Sister in their ward.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas this week and thoroughly enjoyed time with their friends and family. This week was one of the most interesting weeks on the mission! I will share with you some of the funny and spiritual moments!
First, the weather here, once again is so crazy. On Christmas day it was 75 degrees and my companion and I were wearing short sleeves all day! Yesterday however, it was so cold! It was 35 degrees with a super strong wind. We were very, very cold when we got back to our house. Today, it is once again 65 and gorgeous.
My companion and I had a lot of fun this Christmas Eve with a great family from my ward and the other set of missionaries! A very different, but great tradition that they have here in Mexico is that they break a Piñata on Christmas Eve. I had the chance to hit it first blindfolded which was very difficult but really fun! After everyone had a turn, the family then gave me chance to hit it with my eyes open with the intention of breaking it open to get the candy. Unfortunately, I ended up hitting it like you would hit a baseball and the Piñata swung up and got stuck in a tree...I was very happy that another missionary in my ward likes to climb trees and got it down. Perhaps there is a reason why Americans don't have pinatas for Christmas?!
I hit 6 months on my mission on Christmas Eve!!! I was very excited! Obviously, this Christmas morning was very different. I woke up on Christmas morning, and was very excited because I knew I was going to be able to talk to my family via Skype that evening. My excitement quickly vanished when we found out that there was no hot water in the house and that our gas tank had run out. I really didn't want to shower in a cold house with cold water so I decided to wait. Later that day, we ate at a humble members house. We ate a soup that had pure chunks of fat. To top it all off, nobody wanted us to teach them a lesson because it was Christmas so we just walked around all day. This was, of course, the low point of the week.
The high point of the week was that we had perhaps, the two most spiritual lessons of my entire mission. One lesson was with a young mother, who served as a Catholic Missionary for 3 years. We were just walking in the street and I had passed by this one house at least 100 times but had never knocked on this one door. So, I turned around and knocked. We had an incredible lesson about the Plan of Salvation. It was one of those experiences you have as a missionary when you feel like you were taught as much or more than you taught the person you were teaching. She gave me incredible advice about serving missions, she told me that I will only have one chance, and one opportunity to serve a mission and completely lose yourself in the work of the Lord, so make the most of it. She shared a lot more advice and really wants to come to church with us!
The other lesson we taught was with another woman. A college student from our ward came with us and we taught again about the Plan of Salvation. The college student was so clutch. She bore an incredible testimony about the Plan of Salvation and that each one of us will have a chance to receive the Gospel, with the goal that someday we can live with our families forever. After our investigator said the prayer, I held out my hand to give her a high five, and then felt incredibly embarrassed when I noticed that she was crying. She said that she had felt something during the prayer. Something wonderful, something joyful. She also wants to come to church with us and someday be baptized.
I learned a lot from these two lessons, first of all, the Plan of Salvation is a perfect and wonderful plan that our Father in Heaven has given us. This gives us the chance to learn, progress, and have joy here on the Earth. It also makes it possible that we can one day return to live with our Father in Heaven and with our families,if we live according to God's commandments.
I hope you all keep in mind the perfection and comfort that the Plan of Salvation brings us! And if you don't know what I am talking about and want to, ask someone who is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and I promise it will be worth it!
Much love from Mexico!
Have a wonderful and safe New Year's Eve! Enjoy the College Football Bowl Games for me!! I will be working extra hard this week so I can forgot all the football I am missing :)
All the best,
Elder Shipley
Skyping with Jeff on Christmas Day!
No comments:
Post a Comment