Week 80 Email: Merry Christmas!!

From: Christian.garcia@missionary.org
Date: Monday, December 26, 2022
Subject: Merry Christmas!!

Bonjour tout le monde! Okay so I know that for some of you Christmas has already passed but majority of y'all should be getting it on Christmas day soooo... MERRY CHRISTMAS!! Wow this week was something else that's for sure. I'm not really sure how best to describe it haha. 

We started off the week by heading to Bohicon to do our district council. We talked a lot about the grace of God in our lives and where we have seen it and then how we could share it with others. It was totally worth the 2 hours in a car to feel the Sporirt that much. We spent the rest of the afternoon, after having spent 2 more hours in a car, trying to contact people. Not many wanted to listen though so it was a lot of just taking and ears closing. 

Wednesday went alright we had a very amazing lesson that was guided 100% by the Spirit with our ami Audrey. She has a baptismal date for this Saturday the 31 so if you could keep her in your prayers that she can get work off it would really help. Normally when we teach lessons we go a few principles at a time as to not overwhelm the people with loads of information but as we were teaching her the Spirit kept nudging us to talk about another principle and another... up until we ended up talking with her about 7 or 8. And the best part was that she understood everything and talking with her at church she didn't have any questions and said that everything was clear! It was such a blessing after having been shut down the day before. And then came another long drive. We spent the rest t'offenser the day (basically) in a car so that we could go down to Cotonou for our Christmas activity. It took maybe 4 ½/ 5 hours to get to Menontin but it wasn't too bad because I got to sleep for some of it haha. And then we got to spend the night with my son, s/o Elder Meline, and the other Menotin Elders. They're pretty great. 

Thursday was a super fun day, minus another 5 hours car drive. I seriously feel like I lived in a car this week haha. All the missionaries in Benin got to com together to have our Christmas activity and it was amazing. The missionaries here are crazy talented when it comes to singing or directing/putting together music sets. We had a few Elders play instruments too such as the violin, the guitar, and the piano. Each district gave a little Christmas presentation so my district sang the Hymn 133 (in French bc it doesn't exist in English) and then we took it back to primary and we bukit a snowman and then we ended it with Feliz Navidad. It was really fun and we got the rest of the assembly to sing with us. Definitely better than last year haha. After spending most of the day in Cotonou Elser Kyungu and I went back up to Dassa that evening/night. It was worth it too because we got 20 pineapple and a watermelon for about $2 and they have been tasting soooo good.

Friday was or weekly planning and we have set some pretty big goals for this coming week and month that we are hoping to attain. After planning we went out contacting again. And there was a lot of no and a very few times we heard yes. It was pretty hard to want to keep going but we kept with it and felt the Lord guiding us.

Saturday was a lot like the res tof the other days this week when it came to teaching. We found one really cool ami named Sœur Marie Curie, and she even cane to church!! But then the res tof the day -- nothing. We ended up deciding that we were just going to invite people to church hoping that would change some people's minds but alas that didn't work :/

Sunday was such a fun day and it was Christmas!! Christmas here is very weird because its hot and there's no snow whatsoever. And no decorations either. I am thinking it's going to be like last year where people go ALL out for the New Year. So we'll find out. We had a very few people come to church so that was very hard to see and then the afternoon wasn't looking too hot either. Bit then members came in clutch and we were able to contact some really promising people! I am looking forward to this next week so that we can talk to them and answer their questions. 

Elder Kyungu shared a message in church today and said that the goal in this life isn't to compete with others but it is rather to bring souls unto Christ through His redeeming gospel. We see that in the life of Jesus Christ all He did was invite others to come unto Him. And it is the same today as well!! We all have a light and we all have the opportunities to ahre that light with others and help bring them unto Him. Even though Christmas has passed we are still in the "Christmas Season" and are coming up on New Year's. I wanted to extend the invitation to everyone to think of ways that throughout the rest of this year, and maybe think of a goal for this next year, to help bring others unto Christ. Even if it is just by a small and simple act of kindness or service. 

Thank you all for reading this week's edition. I love you all so very much. Joyeux Noël!!

Beaucoup d'amour,

~Elder Garcia

Photos:

Dassa 

Kids dress up like that here and then dance for money... pretty freaky ngl

The fam