PRAY FOR DAVID

We passed Christmas down here really good. Christmas Eve we ate dinners with the families in the wards but we spread out the dinners with the times so we didn't die of eating so much food. We pretty much just ate a lot of turkey and drank Inka Kola, but it was good. At one member's house we ate goat, and it was very tasty. The members here in the ward are awesome because they gave us some presents. 

So down here in south america for Christmas they do things a little different. The 24th they have a party and dinner with their families and they wait until 12:oo am and then everyone shoots off fireworks and then after the fireworks they open their presents and then party until 6 am. I wanted to do something a little different for the elders in my room because they are all Latinos. SO we all stayed up and we went to the roof at night to watch the fireworks and it was pretty cool. The fireworks were shot right over our heads and it was great, haha. Then after they went to sleep I wrapped some presents for them which were soccer jerseys I had got earlier in the week and I put them under a little Christmas tree that we have. 

It was super awesome to see their reactions on Christmas morning because they were so surprised that there were presents under the Christmas tree and they all ran over and opened them up like little kids and they were super happy. It was just cool to see because they never have had presents to open up in the morning. 

Later on that day we had a zone breakfast and we ate a TON of french toast and then we played some games and we played white elephant. 

Later that night we ate Christmas dinner with the family Bravo. They invite us over to eat dinner with them every Sunday night and they are just a really awesome family. So that's how Christmas went. 

We also had the chance on Christmas Eve to deliver presents to kids. We went to a very poor part of our ward where there are just dirt streets and shacks. The members bought presents for us to deliver to these kids. We brought about 30 presents and we had them wrapped. When we arrived, all the neighborhood somehow knew we had presents so they all came running towards us. It was insane to watch it all. There were about 100 people and we were only able to hand out to about 30 people. The adults were asking for more but sadly we didn't have enough for everyone. 

So from last week we had a lot of potential people that had gone to church but in the end sadly they all kind of failed us and they didn't want anything. But this week we had 2 really big miracles. The first was David Rojas. David is one of the most chosen people that I have ever seen. The only thing that is preventing him from being baptized is that he needs to get divorced from his ex-wife and married to his current spouse that he's living with but not married. To make a really long story short, David is just a really awesome, noble guy and he got married awhile ago. He had a kid but later on his wife just leaves him and takes the kid and some of his credit cards. Later on he figures out the the kid actually isn't his kid and that his wife cheated on him. He found a new wife and has a kid and he has been trying to get divorced from his old wife but she has pretty much disappeared and he has tried many different ways to find her so he can get divorced and marry his current spouse. All the legal stuff and everything is ready he just needs her signature. He wants to get baptized so bad so that he can have an eternal family. So if everyone can pray for David and ask that he  can find his ex-wife that would be great! We have talked to him about how God can work miracles in our life and how He can help him find his wife. It is just so sad to see because he has literally done nothing wrong in his life, and he just wants to have a happy family. But we know that God can work miracles for him. 

The other miracle was Giampier or Jhon Pier. We contacted him last Sunday and had a lesson with him on Friday and he's 20 years old and he lives with his dad. His parents are separated, and he says that he really wants to change his life and start off good the new year. He accepted to be baptized the 25 de enero. In the first lesson with him he told us how good he felt inside and how he just felt an immense peace and happiness like he had never felt before. So that about sums up the week. I hope everyone enjoys the new year!