Alec's Mission to Colombia: Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Everyone!

So my Christmas this past week was awesome! Here in Colombia they really only celebrate on Christmas Eve. The whole day is full of church and family stuff and then as it gets to be night Christmas kind of ends and partying begins. Also they do not really believe in Santa here. They say that the Baby Jesus brings gifts to people or that he blesses us so we can have money for gifts. I think that sounds pretty awesome. Since Christmas turns into party stuff, we had to be inside by 6 pm. Because of that we ended up spending the night at our Zone Leaders flat. It was nice to spend Christmas with them and eat together. The next morning was Christmas Day and we headed back to our own area by bus. Since it is not really celebrated everything was open like business as usual. When we got back to the house I got to open my Christmas gift, my package finally got here!. Elder Price couldn’t wait to open his and did it earlier in the week and then felt bad he had nothing on Christmas. He was pretty bummed. All my gifts were so cool and so was the wrapping paper. I loved them all. Elder Price asked why you guys sent me so many little toys. I told him “Its because my parents love me more then yours”, although it was a bit sad that I did not receive any Dr Pepper : ( but other then that it was great. After presents I went and skyped home which was pretty awesome. I had been really looking forward to it. Just so you know, I didn’t cry afterwards. I don’t know what it is but I am like never home sick. There are times that I want things from back home but I never want to go home, we will see how that goes next year when I am almost done with my mission.

After skyping we went back to the flat to take our nap we and been planning on for weeks. Elder Price and I had agreed that a good 30 minute nap was a gift we both deserved for Christmas. We set the alarm to go off in 30 min but not 5 min later the sisters called us and asked if we could give a blessing to Sister Pérez, because she was not feeling well. So much for our nap, we then gave her a blessing and headed to the church. We both fell asleep waiting for people but they never showed so we got a nap after all and it was glorious. Afterwards we went to the members house to have lunch with the fish that we caught. Sadly he just fried the fish so it wasn’t very good. He could have done so many things but didn’t. What a waste of fish. After that we all went caroling to the all the church leaders and a few of our investigators. It was really nice to share the Christmas spirit with the people of Chinchina and that sums up my Christmas.

We also had a Christmas activity on Friday with the Branch. We read the christmas story in Luke 2 it was amazing. Then we talked about his life and what he did for us. We ended with an amazing video called ´´The Bridge´´. I was glad I was on the stage holding the curtain back because I just started crying in the end. We then fed everyone a Christmas dinner of Arroz con pollo. A member also made cup cakes for every single person that came to the activity. It was pretty great.

Here is the link to the video we watched:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JSXqVb8Kc4

Sadly, I did not get any emails or cards from anyone for Christmas other than my family. The cards could still be in the mail so I get to wait for those which should be fun. I will most likely be getting cards for the next 4 months because the office never sends stuff on time.

As for the gifts my parents sent, they were all pretty awesome. I got a toy shark with a freakin laser beam on its head, a rubik´s cube, t shirt from the big bang theory, totally awesome mustache socks, small toys, and candy. My parents rock!!!

Love you guys lots and hope you are all doing well,

Alec

P.S. Sorry to my family who all got the flu for Christmas.

All my gifts in the box were wrapped and in Toy Story paper to boot.