The activities were fantastic.

Friday, we went to the nursery up in the really poor area of the zone. The clowns played games like musical chairs and things like that with the kids, and we sang some Christmas hymns as well. We had a sound system, so the kids could dance as well. After about a 2 hour program, we gave them all gifts, took lots of fotos, and headed out. There were a LOT of gifts left over as well, so we took to the streets and knocked doors, giving toys to all the little children we could find in that community. Honestly, it was a fantastic feeling. Also, not only was our president there with his wife, but also the president of the other mission (Guadalajara East). A member invited him to come along, and he brought a lot of gifts with him.

Saturday we went to the old folks home. We sang many more christmas carols this time and a member played guitar and sang old folk songs for and with them. Then we got the older ladies dancing and having lots of fun, and we served them hot cinnamon and sweet bread, and at the end we gifted each of them a scarf. The funny part was that there were some catholic priests there giving mass and prayers and whatnot when we arrived. We waited for them to finish before we started up, and they joined us! One of them sang a song with the member who played guitar, and I talked to another one for a long time. He had a lot of questions about us and said he respected us as missionaries a lot. He was really happy we came to help out the old ladies. Also, he said The Other Side of Heaven was a fantastic movie.

It was really really fun to do all these activities and it helped these people a lot. It also got the zone exited to work hard and motivated the members to work together with us. They´re planning another activity for the 28th, but I don`t know the details. Now the last crazy christmas thing Elder Juarez and I are in charge of is our part of the big mission Christmas dinner. We´ll be putting on our skit (and I`ll explain it later! :P), showing off our super cool piñata, videos of our service activity, eating, and having a gift exchange. That`s tomorrow, and then we`ll be able to return to a semi-normalish work schedule. The good news is that 4 less actives that we visited came to church on Sunday. Little by little we´re getting there.

Love,
Elder Lund