Remember He who has given us everything

Love you more than…

The Forgotten carols (and other Christmas music)!

Elder Dickson had a lot of music and so does Elder Jeppesen and its fun to try and get into the Christmas season listening to Christmas music while we get home at night all hot. I miss the snow! I hear there’s a few areas here in the mountains where there is frost, maybe Ill go there next Christmas

Wow I don’t even know how to explain this week. Each day kind of blends in with the others, doing the work, so in some ways I feel like I got to the area and country just barely but it also feels like I’ve been doing this my whole life, ha ha. I bet most return missionaries know what its like. 

So this week started out pretty stressful. I was told I was district leader of four of us elders and two sisters and I was really worried. However I read a Christmas present book my companion,Elder Jeppesen has called “Tu eres Especial” or “You are Special”, one of those classic Deseret Book stories. After reading it and remembering reading with the family, I was feeling the spirit and tearing up a little bit. So I started to feel more confident and prepared when we got a call from our zone leaders (my trainer Elder Coombs is one of them!) and the assistants who told us that it is actually going to be one of the other elders. As soon as I feel up to the challenge I got kicked out haha! Elder Cruz from the capital though is a great guy and will do a better job. 

My new area is supposedly campo or country like but after Dajabon I don’t think anything will feel campo again. To describe my time there I would compare myself to Nephi’s brother Jacob, born in the wilderness of our afflictions.

Dajabon, I feel like is a decent representation of Africa and though I love my “birth town” it was difficult compared to most other areas. Here it is great. The weather is so much cooler, I feel like I’m in an island in the Caribbean! We are in the mountains, or hills rather, that are just outside of Santiago. We have more rain and its kind of more jungle like. We have a really nice house but we aren’t spoiled with hot water like Dajabon. 

Elder Jeppesen has one less transfer than me, so I call him my step-son, which means he is just finished training and I’m his second companion. He is from Jordan, Utah, he likes lacrosse, is a cool guy and well prepared. He is doing better than I was when I began my first transfer after training. 

We have about the same amount of members as Dajabon, but they are a little more involved in the work and there is more priesthood holders here. The investigators are all great and I’m feeling pressure to not drop the ball. 

This week we had our branch Christmas celebration and I got to see lots of the members dancing Bachata, Merengue and Salsa. We aren’t allowed to dance which makes me happy, since I have no clue how, but it would be sweet to learn how and show off my stuff. We had a mission activity in the big Santiago mall called Jumbo. It was fun to hand out Christmas video cards and see other missionaries for once and also bittersweet to hear American music and see the billboards for the American movies that have come out. In church I was called up to bear my testimony. I was nervous but I realized my Spanish has come a lot further and I need to stop reciting lines from lessons and focus more on the spirit. We have a great district and zone. We spent a few mornings with our zone to organize our presentation for the mission Christmas party. We have spent the past week finding out ways to skype and finding web cams, headphones and microphones and back up plans if it doesn’t work to skype home. We don’t really know exactly what we are doing, which makes me nervous but it’ll work out. Tuesday was the mission Christmas party. We acted out the “You are Special” book and watched our half of the mission do their presentations. I also got to see most of my group and my buddies Rojas and Dickson from Dajabon. I got the final Christmas gift and the general conference Liahona finally. At the Christmas party we ate pork, apples, rice and lasagna. We also got to watch the Christmas Carol which is little creepy but who doesn’t love the Christmas Carol! Today we spent the p-day in Santiago, a 20 min gua gua (sketchy minibus or van or sketchy honda civic), and celebrated  Hermana Buchanons birthday. We went to a breakfast place and also surprised her with cake. I bought Uno for our district gift exchange, we’ve played Uno with Jeppesens cards and I’m holding on to the deck Emily gave me hoping it’ll last another few months from all the use. 

This week we are planning to eat with a sweet member family and skype at another branch since our internet is down. It’ll be a little hard to get back to work and recover all this lost time but Christmas is worth it.

 Spiritual thought. I really love how Christmas is a time to remember the birth of Christ and the spiritual rebirth that he offers us. Just like scrooge we all need a change of heart. Constantly we need to be trying to align ourselves with Christ’s life and letting him help us. He was born to be our savior and we were born to rely on his help. I love my savior because he helps me become more than I am. I keep sharing with the people our family tradition of the special gift under our tree. That fancy looking present that has nothing inside and how it represents the first and greatest gift ever given, the humble birth of Christ. 

Regocijad jesus nacio!! Have a merry Christmas and remember He who has given us everything we have and may have. Love you all, more than the grinch with his new triple sized heart!

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Elder Andrew W. Sheffield