Hermana Gracie Beck's Weekly Email - La Primera Navidad + A Baptism!

¡Feliz Navidad! First of all, shout out to my mom- it was her birthday yesterday🎄<3

Mission Cristmas last week was everything I hoped it would be. We arrived in Antofagasta in the middle of the night, and somehow me and Hermana Velasquez were part of the lucky few who got to sleep at President Wu's house! Upon our arrival he promptly began grilling burgers, preparing salads, and serving us cereal and ice cream. It was quite the 1am feast.

The next day we headed to a church building in town and had several hours of council from President Wu and his wife/the mission leaders and then had a big Christmas lunch. After lunch was a talent show!! Our zone won with our reenactment of The Grinch; except Cindy Lou gives the Grinch's name as a member reference and he meets with the missionaries and agrees to be baptized December 25th😎. Technically, every zone got an award- but our award was "Mejor Actitud De Nefi" which is Spanish for "First Place." After the talent show was my favorite part of the whole trip: the Christmas devotional. We watched the Church's nativity video, pausing to take turns singing Christmas hymns that related to each scene. It was nice to have some reverence after such a hectic day. Christmas dinner was empanadas (super delicious) and then President Wu gave each of us a Christmas gift and sent us on our way.

FRIDAY RODRIGO WAS BAPTIZED!!!! I learned a lot from Rodrigo's baptism. First, that planning a baptism is about the most stressful thing ever, especially when the Branch members are required to do the bulk of it but refuse to. I nearly threw hands with some of them, the lack of support/help was insane. And second, that missionaries do not baptize people. I truly feel like we had nothing to do with it, it was all Rodrigo and Heavenly Father, with a lot of help from the Spirit. Us missionaries just happen to be there. Rodrigo was confirmed yesterday on Christmas Eve <3

We spent Christmas Eve with a recent convert named Luisa. She's an old lady who lives alone and has only one leg- and she makes a MEAN hot chocolate. Hermana Velasquez made us Venezuelan Arepas and rice for dinner, it was tasty. Luisa let the missionaries have control over the music and so naturally I had to play Thomas Rhett's christmas songs. It was the bestest day ever. We'll probably go back to Luisa's tonight for more hot chocolate since we can't knock doors on Christmas but still have to "work."

Other news:

- we had to clean the whole church ourselves before Rodrigo's baptism and there was a brand new ping pong table in the baptismal font room ?

- we had several 6.somethin earthquakes

- I guess I've seen enough sun, because I was genuinely mistaken for being Chilean for the first time this week.

See ya next year;)

Hermana Beck