Monday, December 28, 2015

Christmas in Guatemala

I hope everyone could enjoy a good Christmas. It was awesome talking to the fam who happens to be in the Dominican Republic. How cool is that? We laughed a lot. I love my family.

Christmas was great! Christmas Eve is a big deal here. Everyone celebrates Christmas on Christmas Eve. The family gets togther at night, has dinner, eats tamales and shoots off fireworks at midnight. We spent time with some kind member families who had invited us over. All of them gave us food! By the end of the day, my companion and I were stuffed. It was great. On Christmas day, we opened up the gifts mom had sent. 

I especially liked the bad tasting jelly beans. It was fun trying them with my comp. We also made a gingerbread ¨church¨. See if you can spot the church logo in the picture! 


Apart from the gifts and time with members, the best part was that we were able to teach a lot of people. We found a lot of new investigators using the Christmas initiative. I think that`s why it was such a great Christmas. Serving others and sharing the gospel sure brings the Christmas spirit!

One Christmas miracle happened on Christmas Eve. My companion and I had just finished eating lunch and were about to head out to the aldea San Lorenzo. But the bus never came. We decided to knock some doors as we waited. We arrived at a house where the lady who answered didn`t want anything. As she shut the door, another man opened the side door and rode off in his motorcycle. It wasn`t more than 20 seconds before this same man comes riding by and stops in front of us on his motorcycle. He asked who we were and said he would be willing to meet with us. He told us he had prayed that very morning, asking God to send someone to help him with something going on in his life. We set up an appointment for later today. The small, everyday miracles perhaps don`t seem like much at times but to this man, it was exactly what he needed. I know God answers prayers and uses those ready and worthy to help those in need.

Before Christmas, we went to an appointment but the investigator wasn`t home. We decided to get to know the neighbors. Nobody was home so we decided to contact the person working at a small store. She said she was Catholic but allowed us to enter and share a short message. The truth is she really didn`t want anything. But she did give us a reference to some of her friends that lived a few blocks away. We went to contact them and soon realized that it was the same house of a family that had recently been baptized, however the mom and one daughter weren`t. We taught the Restoration and they both accepted a baptismal date for the month of January. It was amazing to see how the Lord lead my companion and I to these two family members.

Anyways, hope everyone has a great week! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I know Jesus is the Christ.

Elder Hicken

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