Week 53 Caroling Caroling now we go!

This week was super sweet! We got to go to Old Town and do what was supposed to be a flashmob but got changed into us just caroling for the Chamber of Commerce meeting. It was pretty sweet. They seemed to enjoy it a lot. We also got to sing for all the people in Cafe Coyote. It was super cool; singing songs celebrating Christ. :) It's my favorite!

Seal of approval?

This week I've learned a lot about tender mercies. They recently gave us very strict and exceedingly small limits on our mileage, so we have to share the car with the sisters almost every day that we, so the sisters dropped us off and we walked around for 5 hours. We were trying to contact a former, and we had made this goal to talk to everyone. So... we were walking, and we missed the street we were supposed to take, but we figured we could just take the next one and backtrack, and as we went we saw someone outside talking on the phone. Well, we had that goal, so we decided that at least we could give them a card. So, we approached him and I tried to hand him a Battalion card. As I tried to, he told us his wife was inside, and told us to go in. ? We were super confused. But we figured, hey, why not? So we walked over to the house, and as we entered, one of the kids shouted, the missionaries are here! And they all welcomed us in. We were SUPER confused. Finally Sister Bermudez asked what her name was, and the wife said Hna Alfaro. OH. I've heard of them before - they're a family that lives in our area but attends in Logan Heights! Hahahah! So, it was our miracle for the day. Haha! One of those tender mercy things. :)

On Friday our branch had a night at the temple to see the lights. One of the members brought champurrado, (it was chocolate flavored. It's kinda like hot chocolate but thicker and not quite as sweet, and can be other flavors too) and it was super delish, and then they had us missionaries sing carols for them. It was pretty... uh... 'exciting,' especially since both Elder Day and I were sick, and had no voice. (Well, mine was super low and his got super high. Lots of jokes about how we switched voices). But we sang anyway and they loved it. It was pretty sweet. Also this week at the temple (during our temple shift) we met this super sweet lady from Damascus. She was so sweet and loved talking to us. I just felt an instant kinship with her. Not sure how to explain it. But I just feel like super close friends. It was a very precious moment for me. :)

We definitely need to add more people, so we decided to go street contacting for 2 hours in this apartment complex on Sunday. There were these two people walking and we tried to talk to them but they "didn't hear us" so we followed after them and they went inside, so we knocked on the door, and started caroling, and their son opened the door, saw us, and slammed it shut. So we finished the song, and left. It makes the words of the songs come to life, and makes the whole representative of Christ thing real. I'll never think of The First Noel the same way. After that we ran into my favorite Filipino lady, A. She's this grandma that walks around the apartment complex with her little push chair thing. She's the sweetest and I LOVE just talking to her. She taught us how to say I love you, but she said it's the true meaning of love, so it's very powerful. It's ini ibig kita. :) Another tender mercy.

Julia's mission stocking

Yesterday we went and had FHE with los Alfaro, and the Sandovals were there! They're a family from Logan Heights. :) It was SO sweet to see them again! They said my Spanish has gotten better. Yay! It HAS improved! :D It's good to know. For the lesson we talked about giving a gift to Christ. It went really well. :)

Oh! We have a Christmas "tree" in our apartment. It's definitely more like a bush, but it smells good and it's named Alfie. It can't stand up on its own so it's actually tied to the fan with Christmas lights. But they're on the wrong way so we can't plug it in. We'll try to fix that today. Ha!

Well, Shengdanjai kuaile! According to Sister Wells, that's how you say Merry Christmas in Chinese. I have no idea if it's right or not, but there you go. :) Feliz Navidad and all that. I think my favorite Christmas song is still What Shall We Give. It's a good question. :)

Hermana Harris