Let's Settle A Long-Standing Debate
The Debate:
On one hand, turkey is amazing, classic, and backed up by Ebenezer Scrooge after he became a nice guy. On the other, Christmas should probably get its own thing instead of robbing Thanksgiving blind like when Black Friday was invented. Plus, ham is my mom's pick and if there's one thing you learn as a missionary it's that your mom was right about everything.
As interesting as this debate is, (and I do want to hear any other arguments that y'all have for one side or the other, please shoot me an email) I have actually come to learn that both are missing the truth. The correct Christmas dinner, is of course, a pan of paella so large that it takes two people to lift, has to be delivered to the chapel in a van, and could probably be used as a Frisbee by Goliath.
Yeah this was a good week, I'm of course talking about the ward Christmas party which was amazing. Because we're covering two islands and they both held their paella feasts on the same day we had to grit our teeth and pick one. We ended up in Lanzarote this week, which was great because I don't know the people there as well as I'd like and this helped a lot. We invited some people we're teaching and everyone had a great time.
People:
Graciela is a pretty frail old woman who lives near us with her husband Carlos. Her son Saul is pretty well known by the members here but hasn't been to church in a while. He reached out to us to tell us that Graciela wants to get baptized. The whole family is from Uruguay, so Elder Quintana was stoked since he's partially from there. It's tough for Graciela to get around and we could tell she was happy to have someone new to talk to. And Elder Quintana pulling out his Uruguay accent definitely helped us find common ground. We've started teaching Graciela, who's super receptive and has a lot of faith. Carlos is there all the time, and contributes to our discussions, but has a habit of taking something we say and connecting it to his own ideas about philosophy, history, aliens, and chess. He's crazy well-read, and it would be interesting to talk to him about some of this stuff, but as we had to remind him a few times, our job is to teach the basic doctrines to people who want to learn. They both came to the Christmas party and it was really cool.
We had a video call with a woman named Elisa who met with missionaries before the pandemic and is interested in starting again. What's really interesting is that she told us that she has a lot of age and experience, so she knows it's not as easy for her to accept new ideas, but is totally willing to learn and try to see if what we're teaching is the truth. It's nice when people are upfront and honest, because that's how seeking the truth should work.
The people I've talked about in the past are doing really well. We met Isa's husband, who is another case of being less receptive but supportive and willing to hear our lessons. Carmen's still learning, coming to church regularly, and being a legend. Island swapping makes continuity a bit tough but we try to stay in touch with people. We'll be on Fuerteventura for two weeks the next time we swap, so we'll be able to see people more often.
Let's wrap this up the right way:
Had an epiphany this week. It's easy to wish that God would just tell us what we want to know, because of course He knows it. It's normal to wish He would talk to us more, and guide us more. This is the importance of personal revelation, to receive more guidance from Him. But how many of us are truly familiar with everything He has already revealed? The scriptures are His word to us. The first step to find His will on a subject or even just feel His love and guidance is to turn to His word. That is how we can feel His influence, by searching the scriptures for His word for not just the world, but for us individually. I know that by searching, you can find what He wants to tell you.
Feliz Navidad!
Elder Curtis
Not many photos this time, there's some cooler videos and stuff too big to attach on the Google Photos:
Paella (it looks too small here. It was HUGE)
Boat
Closest thing to beach pictures I'm going to get.
Spanish people really like these decorations that are little Santa dolls climbing their houses. Once street had like six of them.
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