3 More Sleeps Until Christmas!

 

This past week has been pretty eventful. We are finally legal as we traveled to Rubi and Terrasa to get our residency cards. So, we're good for a year. I have also been scrambling trying to get all of the End of Year stuff pulled together. In addition to having spend half a day getting our cards, we also had to travel to a place called Blanes to check out an apartment there as the President wants to send missionaries to that city. Blanes is a little over an hour away. It was as stressful as always having to drive there, but the apartment is going to work out well for a pair of missionaries. So, we will be doing all the stuff that needs to be done to get all of the paperwork pulled together and setting up the finances to get the rents paid, etc.

Another little bit of excitement was getting into a small accident. We were driving to work one morning. A guy decided that he wanted to turn from the second lane over to a street off to my right without signalling, and totally cut me off. Within less than a second I slammed on my brakes to avoid hitting him, I heard the obnoxious TIWI say "Aggressive Driving", and felt the thump of the motorcycle rear-ending me. Fortunately there was no damage to the car as he hit my bumper with his tire. He wasn't injured, and his bike only got a couple of scratches from being dumped to the ground. The turkey who caused it all never stopped, and probably didn't even know what he had done. I had to report it all to the "Car Czar", but nothing terrible happened. Unfortunately, they won't be taking away my driving privileges, which I am beginning to wish would happen. It just put an exclamation point on the fact that I don't like driving in Spain!

Hermana Musser also had a little excitement this week. Amongst all of the calls for stuff that goes wrong in the apartments, she got a call from a group of sisters in Valencia saying that all six of them had gone out to exercise, and forgot to take their keys. Valencia is 4 hours away from Barcelona so driving down there was out of the question. We asked them if they had given a set of keys to the Senior Couple there, the Bishop, or Relief Society President like we had asked them to, which they had not. So, we had to call the company that deals with property management to see if they could either contact the owner to see if they could let them in, or call a locksmith. In the meantime, the sisters decided to pray. We got a call back after a few minutes saying they were now in the apartment! We asked how that happened, and they said that after they prayed, they decided to climb from the neighbor's balcony over to their own! Obviously this wasn't something that we would have approved of, but they did it. So, we cancelled the locksmith, and were just grateful that the President didn't have to write a letter to some grieving parents over the loss of their precious daughter! Apparently, Spiderman has a sister on a mission in Spain!

Friday we had to fill in for the couple who usually does all of the cooking for the institute kids because the husband had been hospitalized with pneumonia. We partnered with the Hammonds and got it done. There is just a lot of stuff that pops up that needs to be handled and so we are grateful to feel needed at any rate.

As we get closer to Christmas I have been thinking about the Savior's birth and what it means in our lives. I love reading about the prophecies of His birth both in the Bible and in the Book of Mormon, and how those sacred events played out. I have been trying to imagine what the people thought as Samuel the Lamanite prophesied of the signs of the Savior's birth and death. They watched him be miraculously protected from the stones and arrows of those who rejected his message as he taught on the wall of the city. They must have wondered at knowing the exact 5 year time-frame that was given. I have to wonder how I would feel and react if the Prophet stood up in General Conference and said "it has been revealed to me that the Second Coming will be within the next 5 years!" Would I immediately change? Would I scoff at the idea? Would I double my efforts to get the word out? As those 5 years come to a close, and the unbelievers threaten the believers with death if the events don't happen as the Prophet said, would I stand up and still profess my faith? Or, would I allow fear to cause me to deny my faith? There is a lot of interesting questions to be found between the lines of  holy scriptures. How would I have responded if I was one of the Shepherds who saw the Host of Heaven praising God and glorifying His name? Was I lucky enough to be part of that Host on that Holy Night? Is it even possible to imagine how wonderful it would have been to be selected to sing in THAT choir? The truth of the matter is that as wonderful as the story of Christmas is, without the events of Easter, the events of that first Christmas would mean nothing. He would have just been another baby born into the world. He is vital to us, not just because He was willing to descend "from his throne divine" to be born, but because He was willing to complete His sacred mission, and give His all for us in Gethsemane and on Calvary. I hope that we can all focus on Him this Christmas. I know that He lives and that He loves us. I am grateful we are able to represent Him for these two years. I only hope that we can be of use to Him!

We love you all, and wish you the most wonderful Christmas ever! If you can keep our Savior at the center of it all, it will be. That we know. Merry Christmas!

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