P-Day update week 45, 12/26/2022

¡Muy buenas tardes!

This week has been really good, really quick but really good!! We've been continuing to work hard even though it's a little harder these weeks!

Zone Conference with district Alborada!!!

So it's been a pretty full week! This week we finally had our zone conference! Maybe it's for the fact that we didn't have a zone conference last transfer, but I definitely feel like this has been a long time coming! This zone conference kinda snuck up on me, one day it was Monday and I had plenty of time to prepare, and the next thing I know I'm there! When I say that I needed to prepare I don't just mean the regular spiritual preparation that one should do before a zone conference! But rather I was notified on Monday last week that I would give a class for the xone conference about the teaching model we use here!! When he first told me I was instantly filled with both great excitement and great fear haha!! I love the teaching model, and I talk about it a lot in my district councils, but giving a class by myself to two whole zones is kinda intimidating. So I spent the week meticulously planning the perfect class, well that's what I should've done. I actually almost instantly forgot about it and waited until the night before to plan my class! Classic Elder Garnica...hehe...But that's how I receive good revelation! So I said a nice powerful prayer and started writing down all my tips for the teaching model, and began to funnel those points down to the most crucial! After practicing in my room for a bit I had it down and ready!

ZONA XALAPA!!!

The day of the conference was great! We arrived super excited for the conference, and we weren't disappointed! President and Hermana Day talked about the same things they said in the leadership council, that is the importance of teaching with the doctrine of Christ, and removing casualness from the mission! But they taught it in a more refined manner, it was super powerful! We also had the opportunity to hear a few special musical numbers, one in particular that was sung by one of the assistants and one of the secretaries. They sang a medley of Christmas songs in Spanish and in English, it was amazing, and such a great spiritual experience! Then of course there was my class, how it worked was there were three classes, three teachers. Each teacher taught his class three times, one in each classroom, and you have ten minutes to teach it! The first class was nerve racking because president and hermana Day were in there so I didn't want to mess up! But from there it just became easier and easier! At the end of the day I quite enjoyed giving the classes! After the conference itself was over, they fed us a lot of great food! They had it catered by a guy in our ward who owns a restaurant, they fed us chicken parmesan, spaghetti, potatoes, rolls, and chocolate filled croissants! It was so good! After eating and taking a lot of photos in the decorations, they also called a nurse to give everyone flu shots, so that was fun! Overall, it was a great conference!

We are all gifts of God

Thank you Santa and his little helpers ;)

So as you all know, yesterday was Christmas! Here in the mission we still celebrate Christmas, but because it landed on a Sunday they gave us permission to have our activities on Christmas eve! Two of the big activities we had, was a breakfast on Christmas eve morning with all the office missionaries in the mission home, and the other a zone activity that night! So our Christmas eve was filled with straight partying haha! Obviously the President knew about said festivities! And with both of these activities we had to bring a gift for a gift exchange, For the zone gift exchange we already picked out our names about a week ago and in my case I already had them wrapped and ready to go! But for the breakfast they didn't tell me we had to bring a gift until Thursday, and not just that, but the gist had to be handmade! After a few hours of stressing over what I was going to bring, I came to a decision! I decided to print out a word cloud of a chapter in The Book of Mormon, Moroni 10! I knew that this chapter said God and Christ a lot so I thought it would look cool! After printing it out, on the other side I drew the famous painting of Christ in Gethsemane! It was actually really hard, since I can't really draw, but I gave it the old college try and it didn't turn out half bad! So the day of the breakfast we arrived to President's house (My first time going to the mission home by the way) and began with the food. Hermana Day made waffles and bacon and hash and yogurt and a lot of eggs! It was probably one of the best breakfasts I've had on the mission to this point! After we ate we had our gift exchange! My gift got into the hands of one of the assistants! And I got a handwritten letter from the other assistant, which was honestly very inspired! He said that he forgot to bring a gift so there at President's house he wrote a letter and felt impressed to talk about a few things in particular, and they were things that I really needed to hear. It was truly great! We also sang Handel's The Messiah and took a lot of pictures before we all headed out to get ready for our other activity!

Our zone activity later Saturday night was also so much fun! We arrived and got right into it! We first started off with some friendly kahoot to get our brains started up! I haven't played kahoot in a very long time but It's basically second nature to anyone who grew up in the US education system! After we played that for a whole we played a game that the sisters thought up! The aim of the game is to open this gift that was super wrapped up tight, but you had to put on an oven mitt on one hand to make it a little harder. And also you couldn't start to try and open it until you rolled a 7 or an 11 on a pair of dice! The game actually became pretty intense as everyone started rolling the dice and trying to rip the gift open! But after about 10 minutes an Elder finally ripped it open and found the gift of ferrero rocher hidden inside! After that activity we got right into the gift exchange which was the main thing everyone was waiting for! So I'll just talk about the important stuff that happened! First the Elder who received a gift from me. Last week I finished his gifts, I gave him a coffin with a famous phrase of his on it, and a drawn version of him on the inside!! But knowing how much he likes Star Wars I also gifted him a stuffed Darth Vader as his real gift! It was a lot of fun getting it all ready for him, I've learned how much I really love giving gifts to people, it's so much fun!! Then after that I received my gift! The person who got me was someone who has been here in the zone with me since I got here, and he gave me the perfect gift! He gave me a Mickey t-shirt and candy! The fact that he got me another Disney shirt to add to my collection was great! From there we destroyed a few piñatas and called it a day! From the activity my companion and I made our way back home and had a quick Christmas program before going to bed! It was a really good Christmas eve!!

Breakfast!!

Finally, good food!!! hahaha!!1

I don't have a whole lot of time to explain in detail what we did on Christmas day, but I can quickly give a recap so y'all can stay up to date! In the morning we opened up gifts, I got a lot of ties and socks like I hoped, we went to church, ate some lasagna with the bishop and his family, I called my family, and we paid the light bill! It went by super fast but it was a great day! The truth is that Christmas here on the mission was definitely different, not in a bad way, but just different! I can definitely say that I had my focus more on the birth of Christ, which is the whole reason we celebrate this day, which was great, to have my eyes set on that! But this past week didn't feel too different from any other week really, just with more lights haha! But I thoroughly enjoyed this Christmas season!

This week we have been working hard to find more people, we have been focusing on families that haven't gone to church in a while and have been trying to help them get back to church! It has been fun getting to know more people and helping them remember why they joined the church and chose to be baptized! And in this search we have also found that some of these families have new members that aren't members but who are ready to be baptized, so we have been focusing with that and just trying to get these families back to church so they can all be baptized and hopefully be sealed together for time and all eternity, that is the goal after all!

Kitty named Moroni!

I will just leave you all with my testimony, I know this church is true, and that we have such a great gift being able to know this gospel and be able to enjoy the fruits thereof in our everyday lives! I know that there is no other name nor way by which man can be saved if not Jesus Christ in his true restored church! My invitation to you all is that you can share your testimony with someone this week and help them feel the love that God has for them! I know that as you pray to find this opportunity and really seek it out, you will find it, and in doing so you will bring more light and love into your life!! I love you all so much, I hope you had a great Christmas and I hope you have a happy New Year!!

-Elder Garnica