Merry few days after Christmas!
I hope you all really enjoyed Christmas. I had one of the best Christmases ever. I did miss being away from all of you, but Heavenly Father really made up for it with some incredible miracles. We were able to be the "angels" for a cute little old lady named Dagmar. She is from the Czech Republic and is about eighty five. Her husband passed away fifteen years ago and her two boys weren't going to be able to come home for Christmas, so it was going to be her first Christmas completely alone, but then we showed up the day before Christmas Eve and watched "Joy to the World" with her and invited her to our Christmas Eve concert at the Visitor's Center. She was so happy and excited to come! She is friends with a member in our ward, which is how we met her in the first place, but it was so neat to be able to help her have a good Christmas. In the Czech Republic they celebrate everything on Christmas Eve and exchange presents, so when she came to the concert we gave her a present of a cute little red scarf and hat, which she wore for the rest of the evening. It was so good to see her so happy. Then we ran into our ward mission leader's family, and found out that he just happens to speak Czech, so we spent time with them and Dagmar got to hold their cute little baby. It was such a wonderful Christmas Eve, and it felt good to see her so happy. She called us her "angels," and she was so sweet. We are hoping to start teaching her more about the church so that she can have the peace and happiness in her life from the gospel, and so Heavenly Father gave us a way to help her and be there for her and hopefully soften her heart and prepare her to receive the gospel.
Christmas Eve morning we had a big musical fireside with the whole mission. I got to sing in the choir, plus I was involved in two other special musical numbers, a group of sisters that sang Breath of Heaven which I sang in and organized, and also a duet of "O Holy Night" that I sang with Sister Salazar, my trainer. It was so much fun! It turned out really well. My companion and I were also in charge of organizing the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day concerts in the Visitor's Center. All of the Sisters sang and equally participated in the concerts, and they turned out really great. We were surprised that we had a full house come to the concerts. We had the congregation sing along with us as well, and it was really great. The spirit was so strong with all of us sisters singing together and focusing on the birth of Christ.
Christmas Day we played Ultimate Frisbee during exercise in the morning and then opened presents, and then I got to talk to my family! It was so great to hear from everyone.Then we had a service activity as a zone where we made cookies to go caroling and take around as a district to some investigators. It was really fun. That night at the Visitor's Center I got the wonderful surprise of seeing the Reyna family and the Marquez family that both came to the concert. It was so good to see them! We got a picture of all of us together, and it made me think a little bit about what the reunion in Heaven is going to feel like, with that great joy that it talks about in Doctrine and Covenants 18 that comes from bringing your friends with you into the kingdom of God. it was so amazing to see some of the blessings and the fruits of serving my mission all at once, on Christmas.
I hope that you all got to see some wonderful Christmas miracles too. I feel like miracles are Heavenly Father's gifts to us that show us how much he loves and cares for us, and we just need to be open to seeing them all around us. I was also really touched by the love my family has for me, and for the beautiful gift that my Daddy here gave me. It's a picture journal of all of our hiking adventures together. Overall it was such a wonderful Christmas. I know that every time we sacrifice something good that we love, like time with our family for Christmas, that Heavenly Father makes it up to us and blesses us even more, so no matter what we do he is just so good and so merciful to us, and we can never deserve it. We just have to do our best to keep his commandments and follow his Son.
I love you! Have a wonderful, exciting, fun filled, New Year!
Hermana Dansie
1. Basketball!
2-3 Christmas Eve with Dagmar
4 Ultimate Frisbee
5-6 Christmas morning- Opening Presents!
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