Feliz Navidad!!

FELIZ NAVIDAD!!!

Hope everyone's Christmas was the best everrrr!! It was hard to be away from the family for the fist time this holiday but I'm so blessed that we have families here that took us in and tried to make us feel at home. We were able to have a huge lunch and dinner on Christmas Day as well as a fun party with the Palominos for Christmas Eve! It was also awesome to be able to skype the family yesterday. Super cool being able to talk to Dad In Spanish! 

We organized caroling with all the missionaries on Thursday and some ward members showed up so that was really cool. My comp and I also started some Christmas traditions for a few families here having secret santas and white elephant gift exchanges. I'm so grateful for my family and for the opportunities my parents have always given us to think of others and serve during the holiday season. I'm so grateful for Jesus Christ and the example he set for us. I hope you have been able to take part in the 25 days of service and seen some miracles along the way! Remember to keep looking for service opportunities throughout the course of this next year! 

Today for p day we climbed a mountain called pika-chu haha it was pretty fun, then we had another barbecue. While we were hiking the office called and asked if my comp could do his last interview in Murcia tonight at 6 so we hurried back to Elche changed in like 10 minutes then sprinted to the train station. We bought our tickets and started running down to the platform. All the people who had just got off were coming up the stairs so we were like pushing though the crowd running as fast as we could. We turned the corner and heard the alarm sounding for the doors to close them jumped on just in time. We asked the lady next to us if we were on the right train and she looked super scared, I'm pretty sure she thought we were CIA agents or something haha 

Anyways that's why my email is so late I love you guys sooo much have a great week!

Elder Childers

Rain go away come back another day!

So it's been raining here like the past 3 days on and off not really that hard but one thing I've learned about Spain is everyone is a bunch of wusses when it comes to rain. Like literally if it's just barely drizzling the streets are empty, the shops all close and if it's a Sunday nobody shows up to church. Anyways so today is the funniest thing, it's raining like a normal storm in Idaho no big deal and they canceled all of school and even the universities. However a city in our zone Orehuela has been having huge floods, like cars and trucks floating down the streets, I'll try to send the video I got from one of the members. For pday we went to Alicante to climb the castle it was pretty fun. This cool guy Joseph who comes to English class every week always wants to hangout with us so we invited him today and he came! He lived in Arizona for like a year with his cousin so he knows like perfect English. He isn't really interested in the gospel but he loves the english classes and he loves the missionaries, hopefully one day!

Other than that this week we had intercambios with the zone leaders this week in Alicante on Tuesday and Wednesday. It was cool because the first cita we went to at the end I asked this family if they would get baptized and they said yes!  Then Jessika called us that night, super excited and said she finished the Book of Mormon. My comp buys all of his converts a pair of nice scriptures after they are baptized so we ordered some for Jesika and we are hoping they will get here by Christmas. Thursday we got a big package from Elder Llavinas mom with matching Christmas outfits so we got to wear those for our ward party and we are going to wear them to the Christmas tri- zone conference, which was supposed to be tomorrow but got rescheduled to the 27th because of the rain lol oh yeah ward parties here are crazy! Of course they had a tv up on the stand with the fútbol game going haha then after the dinner they brought in these huge speakers to have a big dance party that apparently went till 3 AM it was a bummer we had to be back at piso by 11 cause we missed out on the talent show and the dancing since the dinner started. 

Just really excited for Christmas but also nervous to get my new companion! 

Love you all, I hope all is going well there and you're enjoying the snow and the Christmas season with your families. I send my love from Spain 💙

Elder Childers 

Converting and Cooking

Well I'll start off with the best news! Our investigator Jesika had her interview Saturday and she will be getting baptized this week! It's super cool to see how excited she is for it. Its been crazy to see the change in her life just the past 3 weeks that I've known her for. She has some crazy and horrible things happen in her life. Things that still effect her life every day. Its so awesome that through baptism she can be cleaned from her past and start new again. Its so cool to see how excited she is. The other day we went over to visit her and her and her mom made us Paraguayan food it was soooo good! It was so funny because Jesika's son Juan like loves us so much. Every time we leave he cries its so cute haha. The other day we had a family home evening at the Palominos. Jesika had to leave early and when she did Juan ran back in grabbed my comp and I and was trying to drag us out then when we walked back in he just like stared at the ground all sad haha he's so funny.

Oh yeah also this wednesday was crazy. The stake had a big leadership meeting so they asked all the missionaries to make a big lunch for all of them. They said there was going to be about 50 people so we made 9 kg of pasta, my comp and I made 100 cookies and all the other companionships brought everything from bread to soda to salads. It was crazy we had so much food. Then only like 30 people actually ended up coming. But it was alright because we had tons of leftovers and we had tons of cookies to give out to people haha.

Anyways other than that, its so weird there's already so much snow there. Still short sleeve weather here during the day haha I miss the cold 😂 its been raining almost everyday this week and last night after our correllation meeting with the ward mission leader we were walking to the bus stop and a car drove through this huge puddle next to us and we got soaking wet from the big splash in our suits so that was fun 😂😂 

Christmas stuff has been good though its really easy to contact with the christmas cards plus its fun to have a new little video each day. 

I was reading another conference talk the other day in it was this story I liked:

“A group of religion instructors were taking a summer course on the life of the Savior and focusing particularly on the parables.

      “When the final exam time came, … the students arrived at the classroom to find a note that the exam would be given in another building across campus. Moreover, the note said, it must be finished within the two-hour time period that was starting almost at that moment.

      “The students hurried across campus. On the way they passed a little girl crying over a flat tire on her new bike. An old man hobbled painfully toward the library with a cane in one hand, spilling books from a stack he was trying to manage with the other. On a bench by the union building sat a shabbily dressed, bearded man [in obvious distress].

      “Rushing into the other classroom, the students were met by the professor, who announced they had all flunked the final exam.

      “The only true test of whether they understood the Savior’s life and teaching, he said, was how they treated people in need.

      “Their weeks of study at the feet of a capable professor had taught them a great deal of what Christ had said and done.” In their haste to finish the technicalities of the course, however, they failed to recognize the application represented by the three scenes that had been deliberately staged. They learned the letter but not the spirit. Their neglect of the little girl and the two men showed that the profound message of the course had not entered into their inward parts.

      We must at times search our own souls and discover what we really are. Our real character, much as we would wish, cannot be hidden. It shines from within us transparently. Attempts to deceive others only deceive ourselves. We are often like the emperor in the fairy tale who thought he was arrayed in beautiful garments when he was in fact unclothed.

Reading this story also made me think back on all the times I have been in a hurry to get somewhere or do something on my way seeing someone in need but thinking I've got more important things to tend to, I'm to busy right now, or I'm sure someone else is already on their way to help. How selfish I was sometimes. Then I thought about how many times people stopped to serve me, what opportunities were they missing out on? What did they put aside to come help me out? I challenge all of you especially during this special month of service to look out for little acts of service and kindness to do each day I promise you will receive blessings and you will feel good too. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" 😉

Much love from Spain! 🇪🇸 

-Elder Childers