Elder Blackham's Mission Blog: Fiestas Navideñas

Last week the Christmas festivities began! It started out with a lot of cooking on pday last week. My companion, the other elders in our ward, and I decided to make some treats for the people we are teaching and go caroling! On Monday last week I baked cookies and Elder Mahler made popcorn. Tuesday we went to the Hidalgo lights! There is a big park across the street from the church that is decorated for Christmas. Tons of people go and look at the lights. The church was open almost everyday for an open house so people could come inside and warm up! Tuesday was the day our ward was assigned so we went and helped. There were a lot of people that we were able to talk to and get to know! On Thursday we went caroling to a bunch of our people that we are working with and gave them goodie bags! We saw so many blessings from this activity!! The next day (Friday) was the ward Christmas party. There were 11 non members there from our area and 3 or 4 less active families!! The other elders also had a few non members and less active families. It is the best turn out to a ward party I have ever seen! I've never been so confused at who to sit with because there were so many new/unfamiliar faces! 2 of the families that are non members that came we went caroling to the day before! One of the families is the Garza family! Two of the kids are members but the parents and the 3 other siblings are non members. After caroling Thursday they came to the party Friday and loved it! Then we had a super good lesson at their home with a member family that we invited and then the mom came to church with two of her kids the next day!!