Semana 71: ¡¡La Navidad!!

Quiúbole changos! Voy a sacarles la sopa ahora esperenme tantito porfa!

Merry Christmas!!!

First off, thank you for all of the birthday wishes! Being 20 feels a little strange but it's the start of a new decade so I am hyped. I am also finishing my blackout year on the mission this week so I'll see all y'all in 2022!!

Fuegoo

This week was splendid. We had a lot of fun activities including a Branch Christmas party, zone activities, and passing out gifts to our investigators.

Emircito

Not going to lie, our branch knows how to throw a party. I was thinking it was gonna be this lame fiesta that nobody was going to show up too. People definitely showed up...and a lot of them. Basically all of the people in our branch who are inactive all year long, showed up to the branch Christmas party to participate in activities and eat free food. When Sunday rolled around, they went back into their inactive shell. There was a lot of dancing and skits, and even Santa came. All of the children are accustomed to seeing Santa with dark skin and when I showed them a pic of me with Santa with his pale, white skin, they all said "That's not Santa!!"

Christmas Party

The Primary performed a dance and in the middle of it, a stray dog walked into the middle of the routine and I guessed he liked the attention so he stayed there. The parents were trying to shoo the dog away but instead it took a massive dump in the middle of the dance floor. My companion and I couldn't stop laughing.

Another Christmas Party

I learned how to dance to cumbia.

I bought my entire zone matching Christmas PJs and got some of them to dance to "All I Want For Christmas is You" with me. If you want the vid, send me a message lol. 

Matching PJ's

Zona Papantla

Christmas Eve we ate pozole with our zone and destroyed a piñata 🪅

Christmas  morning, my comp and I opened gifts, took a taxi to Papantla and spent time with the Zone. We had a gift exchange, destroyed another piñata, played some Christmas games and called our familia. In the afternoon my comp and I passed by 5 or so families to spend time with them on Christmas. We bought gifts for 4 families in specific and we watched them as they opened them. These families come from extremely humble circumstances and usually don't get gifts nor celebrate this holiday like we do in the US. It was amazing to see how one, simple gift made their day. A lot of tears of joy were shed that day and it really put things into perspective for me of how lucky I really am. 

7 man taxi

Monday was my birthday, it was a really fun day. We played some soccer and grilled hamburgers. My zone smashed my face in a cake and bought a piñata. It was a blast and I had a lot of fun. This is the last week before transfers and it looks like my companion is getting shipped out of here and I will be staying. But who knows. I hope that's the case because I love this area. 

Ice Skating

Have a phenomenal week!! Love you!!

Elder Scown