Play by play

Wow. That might have been the most different week of my mission. I think I'm going to go day by day and see what happens. 

Monday - Like I told you, we came back from Tuxtla, washed clothes, taught some lessons, and went back again to be ready for the Christmas conference the next morning (I needed to be there early apparently for some musical thing we were going to do that was never explained and I just went along with everything.) We had a lot of fun that night being with Sister Pugh and Cruz, our gringa SisterTrainingLeaders, and pretending it was Christmas eve, with some Christmas carols, a pizza, several outbursts of SANTA`S COMING TONIGHT, and so forth. Such fun girls.

Tuesday - Christmas!! We headed to the stake center, put together a little Nativity show real quick with some costumes and I was one of the singing angels. Then we had a talent show - everyone told me to play my Jon Schmidt song but then they never announced it and it was time for food, and I'm not QUITE Wilson enough to show off if I'm not invited or announced, so it went unplayed for that day. They've all heard it and it was time for other people to get to show off. ;) We had a fancy meal of Little Caesar's pizza and crazy bread for Christmas dinner, a testimony meeting, and then went to the temple in two sessions since there were a lot of us. Sister Pugh and Cruz got stuck in the second session which meant we couldn't break into their house for our stuff so we ended up staying one more night in Tuxtla (yay!) and got to talk to a lot of missionaries outside the temple and take pictures for a few hours while we waited. It was a beautiful Christmas.

Wednesday - We returned and planned on getting back to work, but alas, this happened to be the day in which for the second time in my mission (as well as the third, fourth, and fifth), I "lost my cookies" as they say. The assistants apologized a lot for the little Caesars but I'm pretty sure I just caught something. I got a blessing that night, headed back to the house to fall asleep to some nice Josh Groban christmas music and woke up fine. 

Thursday - We worked! I think it was a normal day cuz I can't remember it.

Friday - I'd rather forget. This was the day of our ward Christmas night which we were all excited for. We invited everyone, found a random family with six kids in the park whom we invited, and they CAME, and we later wished they hadn't because it was absolutely the worst activity I've ever dreamed could happen in the church. I won't go into details but the entertainment fell through and they brought in a DJ who apparently was not informed of the church norms and was singing awful music in an awful voice that was awfully loud. The family wouldn't come back afterwards, although they did finally let us in to sing them a hymn and I think my ranting and apologizing about what had happened finally won them back over but we'll see what happens. It makes me sad that nothing was done to stop it or apologize but ni modos, ya pasó. [anyway, it's over] 

Saturday - We had a nice baptism from the elders, the mom of a young man who was baptized a month and a half back and who got to baptize her himself. 

Sunday - Made it all worth it. So this day all the missionaries from our zone went to our neighboring pueblo, Berriozabal, to have a concert in the park. They had a pretty great setup with lights, a keyboard and speakers, and we set up a ton of chairs, got a ton of contacting cards, and sang hymns. They had me on the piano and brought in a missionary who has her violin (she got special permission to bring it on the mission cuz she's professional something or something) who's 2 hours away, and we sang two or three hymns with everyone, then had them all go out and contact while we threw together some on the spot arrangements with random groups of missionaries who could sing or just me and Sister Cook (the violin). We traded off one song and I played the violin with her on the piano. The spirit was awesome and it felt like Christmas and I got to fill up a tiny bit of the lingering emptiness in my soul in the spot where not playing the violin for a year appears (I'm not even going to look back on that sentence, I tried). So it was awesome. 

Well, sorry I just talked FOREVER about my life and none of it is about the gospel. I'm sure my family is fine but everyone else is wondering why they are still reading and where their last ten minutes went. To make it all worth it, I would like to invite everyone to go back and read Thomas S. Monson's talk from this past conference which was my favorite this week. It caused me to reflect a lot on the path Jesus walked when He was here on the earth, and how especially in this season we can learn to walk, not only the path of disappointment, pain, and temptation, which we must walk to understand Him and which he DID walk to understand US, but we can also follow His example and walk the path of service, spiritual strength, love, and obedience. He showed us the way, and He GAVE us the way! I hope we all feel a bit closer to Him this Christmas season!

In other news, I'll wish Shaylee a happy birthday today, and everyone else a late happy birthday from this year since the spontaneous moments in which I remember what date it is usually don't come in my weekly hour at the computer. Love you all, and I'll see you on THURSDAY! Merry Christmas!

My new companion (and camera!)

Being musical in the park.