Have A Bombastic Christmas!!

חג מולד שמח

عيد ميلاد مجيد

Feliz Navidad

Buon Natale

felicem natalem Christi

메리 크리스마스

לעבעדיק ניטל

καλά Χριστούγεννα

щасливого Різдва

Feliz Natal

Merry Christmas!!!

I hope you all have a very great Christmas. I would normally write a big email, but I'm celebrating La Navidad like the rest of you, so I'll give you guys a short summary of what went on last week, and you will get a full email sometime in the future (maybe)!

What happened:

 - Decided to make a goal to listen to all of Pres. Nelson's talks (General Conference, MTC, BYU, etc)

 - Discovered Pres. Nelson learned and read the bible in Hebrew (Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew)

 - Decided I would learn Hebrew to be able to read the Bible in that language

 - Discovered that Gospel Library has no Hebrew translation (something to do with it being a dead language)

 - Decided to switch the language to Arabic

 - Realized Arabic is hard

 - Is questioning life decisions.

 - Will go back to learning Spanish (gotta stay focused on Missionary Purpose)

 - Got two day P-day to celebrate Christmas. 

 - Expected to eat a lot of tamales

 - Recieved 2 tamales

 - Did chores instead of eating tamales

 - Spent 1000+ Lempira on gifts (for myself, companion, other missionaries, and gift exchanges)

 - Talked with fam 

 - Had a ward dinner

 - Was forced to dance an Irish jig for two minutes while my comp (*ahem* Santa Clause) was getting ready to present himself

 - Sang awesome Christmas songs

 - Listened to awesomer Christmas songs

 - Played Christmas songs on the piano

 - Got addicted to Piano Songs

 - Had ward leadership dinner

 - Ate at a fancy restaurant called Anyelos (Angelos (but spelled in a way so Hondurans would pronounce it right))

 - Discovered they had a BBQ Burger option (I always search for BBQ options first)

 - Ate the best BBQ Burger I've had in Honduras (also, the only one I've had)

 - Wrote personal goals for the whole year (including listening to all of Pres. Nelsons talks)

 - Got home super late at night because the Ward Council was held late at night

 - Elders Quorum President drove us home

 - Drunk guy almost didn't let me get into the car (my wicked good looks attracted him)

 - Discovered the Elders Quorum President was rich and bought a nice car from France to drive around (he's one of the owners of the largest mine in Central America)

 - Invited to participate in a parade with the Catholics

 - Went on a parade with the Catholics

 - They are pretty cool people

 - Sang two songs with them

 - Learned about a bit of their culture

 - Invited them to our ward dinner

 - They didn't show up 

 - Bishop chastised us for going out with the Catholics

 - Had a pretty awesome family home evening meeting activity with Alva Luz and her fam.

 - Bishop and 1st counselor of Elders Quorum (+fam) showed up

 - Talked about Christmas

 - Wife of 1st counselor chastised the fam for going inactive

 - Barely managed to control the situation

 - Sang carols with friends

 - Had a missionary conference in San Pedro Sula

 - Missed the bus but still managed to get to the meeting 1 hour early (we planned ahead)

 - Got awesome Christmas shirts

 - Performed in front of everyone

 - Loved the music

 - Was reunited with friends I haven't seen since the start of my time in Honduras

 - Shared stories

 - Met new missionaries

 - Discovered that an awful lot of them have seen dead people this past month

 - Realized that I am included in that list (look to last week and the murder)

 - Played Bingo. 

 - Lost Bingo

 - Played Musical Chairs

 - Lost Musical Chairs

 - They chose the two games that I've never won

 - My comp did win though (Pringles was the prize)

 - Reunited with missionary fathers

 - Discovered that I can include my fam in 1 lesson per month 

 - Demanded that they learn Spanish again

 - We'll see how that goes

 - So few lessons the whole week because every day has been chock-full of activities 

 - Experienced missionary existencial crisis because we spent more of the week celebrating than working (but so was everyone else)

 - Prayed to God to let me know where I can improve

 - He responded with "Literally Everything"

 - Grateful for the new year - I need to make some serious resolutions (and ones that I will keep too)

 - Bought Rubics Cube to enjoy

 - Recieved a giant bottle of BBQ sauce (thanks comp!)

 -  Recieved a bunch of candy, socks, and ties

 - Discovered what my family got for Christmas

 - Bought make-up kits for two members that I was assigned to give presents too (they were preteens girls that I barely knew (I didn't even know the name of one of them))

 - Had two gift exchanges

 - Got a photobook of my fam 

 - Managed to get Rosa Lydia to church 

 - Almost no one else showed up

  - Got my English Book of Mormon back

 - Lost my highlighter that I was using (no more marking up my BOM)

 - Finally saw firework celebrations

 - Made up for the two independence days that let me down

 - Struggled to sleep with all of the explosions

 - Got a cold (sore throat and the occasional cough - I almost made it 6 weeks without trouble)

 - Baked chicken for our land-ladies

 - Did all of my laundry for Christmas

 - Relaxed for the holidays

 - Slept in to recover from illness

 - Wrote this email

 - And more stuff that I cannot remember.

You know what, I'm pretty satisfied with what I wrote. Merry Christmas everyone and Happy Holidays. I'm going to spend the rest of my Christmas enjoying myself and preparing for another week of work before another special p-day weekend (to celebrate the new year). I've changed my mind about making another email to talk about this week because this feels pretty good. I may (but I won't promise) publish another email focused entirely on a Spiritual Thought, but that is currently in the works.

Keep safe everyone and enjoy this special time of year! I'll see you all at the start of 2024!!!!!!!!!!

 - Élder Grant