Hey Everyone!!! How are you guys!!! I can´t believe it! It is Christmas!!! It took a while to find a place that was actually open so that we could email on Christmas but we did find it so that you guys could all know how my Christmas was! So this week we went to the Movie Theaters (Please don´t tell my Mission President) and I was feeling so much in the Christmas Spirit that I invited my whole zone and paid for them to come along too! Okay, actually I guess you can tell my Mission President because we did have permission to go. ]Yep, directly from the Area Seventy, we got permission to go to the movie theater and watch Coco! It was one of my most favorite disney movies of all time, and my first movie I´ve ever watched in Spanish which was kind of cool too, it was weird being able to understand everything. But Coco just has a lot to do with some Mexican Traditions and also with Temple and Family History Work (Surprise) so now it is our job to use this to further the missionary work here in Mexico! I guess God works in mysterious ways, and some of those ways involve a nice Christmas gift to missionaries by letting them go to the movies and watch Coco! So yes, it was a great start to Christmas.
Christmas this year was also pretty memorable in some other ways too though. We did a lot of Christmas carolling including a fun zone activity where we broke off into groups and sang and my group found a "golden family" for sure, who I think will get baptized. We had a ton of success!! Even though a lot of people weren´t really diggin it and kind of rejected us, seeing some lonelier, single people´s faces light up, or watching entire families racing to the door to figure out why the heck 4 white Americans were singing to them made it all worth it and definitely filled me with the true Christmas Spirit. One family all pulled out their cell phones one time and started recording us too, so I wouldn´t be surprised if we turn up on Youtube or your Facebook. Every once in a while maybe you can go look on youtube for "Crazy white guys singing Christmas songs really bad" Or something like that. It was also pretty funny one time we started singing to a family and a 2 or 3 year old girl got sooo scared, she started pointing at us and just crying super hard... I felt bad for her haha. But yes definitely a ton of fun, and we had a ton of success, finding over 150 new investigators in our zone this week and 12 in our area. We also spent a lot of this Christmas doing service. With the help of our Stake President we went to some poorer parts of the stake and handed out food and candy to little kids and family, gave out little toys and blankets, smashed some piñatas (Which all of the kids LOVED- you should see all of them get down and dirty diving for all the candy, and I thought it was bad when we did it with missionaries at our Christmas party!), and also shared the Gospel and the message of Jesus Christ with many. A few of them live in our area so I hope they progress, we really tried hard to "light the world" this Christmas.
This year was really special to me as I spent my last Christmas in the mission, because earlier in the week I just felt like I´ve been so blessed, and don´t deserve anything for Christmas, and how could I possibly repay to my family, to my Heavenly Father, what they have given to me year after year, but as I lost myself in the service of others, trying to make their Christmas´s happy and bright, and spent my time serving my Lord and Savior, I felt a very special kind of Christmas joy. Something you don´t really get normally, not even being an overly excited kid on Christmas morning, or even with your family, but a joy, satisfaction, and love that comes from somewhere beyond this World. Even though I wasn´t laughing and playing games with my family on Christmas Eve, acting out the Nativity scene all dressed up with cousins or watching movies, I could truly feel the Christmas Spirit and knew that I helped others have a brighter and more joyful Christmas too. So Christmas´s in the mission are never as "fun" or "exciting" and sometimes, yes, they are hard and different, and maybe even a little lonely, but there is nothing that I regret about spending these last 2 Christmas´s here in Mexico, serving and loving and I know these 2 Christmas´s will be among my most memorable Christmas´s of all time. I love my Savior. I know that He lives, and that he lived and died for us. I know this church is true and that by losing ourselves in His work and will, we can bring miracles and joy to the lives of others. I have so much love and appreciation, beyond description, for my Master and Redeemer Jesus Christ and my Heavenly Father, especially this time of year. I thank my Father in Heaven for giving unto us, His only Begotten Son and for blessing us always through his love, grace, and mercy.
So yes, like every good thing, it is always sad when it was over. It was great talking to my family as always and seeing and hearing all of your faces and voices. We had some pretty good food for Christmas too, and got to smash a couple of piñatas with some members who were also really great in making it a wonderful and memorable Christmas for us too. And, this year for Christmas I didn´t throw up either!! At least not on Christmas Eve haha... Earlier this week I did get a pretty bad stomach infection and was up all night, but I worked it off and did get better pretty quickly, plus, nothing could´ve ruined this year´s Christmas! We had a sister make us some lemon bars and mint brownies too, our landlords brought us tamales on Christmas morning and it was all just great! This morning too we invited a few other missionaries over and did a huge Christmas breakfast with french toast, bacon, eggs, yogurt, juice, you name it! It is so much fun being close with the zone and I love our zone so much. Elder Warnick and I have been doing AWESOME this week too, we are a great companionship and are just on fire all the time. We found some pretty promising new investigators this week so hopefully that brings more good news in the future. I love my new companion so much and I am grateful for him. Also I´d like to thank my Mom and family sooo much for putting together all of my Christmas gifts including sweet socks, flower ties, Spurs shirts, and lots and lots of candy and treats! Also the 12 days of Christmas gifts my Mom did were so fun too and I am so grateful for my family :) I know that I have the best family in the entire world.
So I guess overall, it was a Christmas Miracle. It didn´t snow and I didn´t get to spend it with my family, but I got to go to the movie theater, put a smile on little kids faces, help the poor and needy, bring about the work of the Lord through Christmas Carolling, and in the end, finish by talking with the best family ever :) Plus Santa even made it down here to Mexico! I think we are even going to get some tacos for dinner tonight too from my favorite taco shop because I am really hungry. It was a perfect way to end this Holiday Season and now it will just be a bunch of time flying by until I am home again! I hope you guys all too, have a very Merry, Wonderful, and Memorable Christmas and also have a Happy New Year!! Shoot some fireworks off this year for me and get ready for 2018 because 2018 is the year that I go home!!!! Love and miss you guys so much as always and have a Fantabulistic (I know that isn´t a word) week!
Your favorite missionary in Mexico,
Elder Tyler Christopher Clark
P.S. I was informed that I also spell "members" wrong... I appoligize for my bad English and everything I spell wrong... It is a mix of that I am losing my English a little and also trying to type these things as fast as I can... Not a good combination lol...
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