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Feliz Navidad !

Merry Christmas from my district !!!


Me and Kaitlyn !
Hello everyone! I hope you had an incredible Christmas! It was such a great week at the MTC. 
We had the most awesome substitute teacher. He grew up in Spain and moved to Chile when he was a senior in high school and served a mission there, and moved here after his mission and learned English. His family lives in Malaga Spain and he is the coolest person I've met. He inspires me so much that I can do hard things. He was in a wheel chair when he was younger because he could not walk, and to make a long story short, Elder Holland told him when he was 13 that he would be healed and be able to serve a mission. When he was 16, he was healed and now he can walk fine and is on the BYU swim team. he was able to serve a mission, so you can imagine how passionate he is about them. I loved having him as a sub this week!
We welcomed a district of all elders this week. They are great! It would be so hard to come to the MTC right before Christmas, but they all did awesome.
I had the 2 coolest TRCs this week. TRC is when you teach members that volunteer in Spanish. The first TRC we had was with this old couple in their 80s. The wife didn't speak Spanish so we taught in Spanish and English. They were so cute. Right when we got there they asked us to sing them a hymn, and then at the end of the lesson they gave us little christmas gifts like the articles of faith in spanish and a letter with their favorite scriptures and their  testimonies. The lady gave me a huge hug at the end of the lesson and said "this is from your mom!" haha and then she gave me their address. I love them! 
The next TRC was so cool! We were actually able to teach over skype. We taught a member who is a native! He lives in Mexico city and we skyped him from his house. I was actually able to understand a lot of what he said, and I could say a lot back! He was probably talking slow though because we are the two whitest girls he had ever seen. Anyway, it was a cool experience and it made me SO EXCITED for Mexico!
Our Christmas was great! We woke up and had a little continental breakfast, and then went into the classroom. The elders had this tiny metal christmas tree and we all put our district presents under it since we drew names. My companion and I got eachother. She bought me chocolate covered cinnamon bears (she knows me so well) and i bought her some scriptures cases she had wanted. Then we opened our presents and it was so cute! Our district is awesome. Then we got to email. That was so hard! It made me a little homesick. After that we got bussed to main campus for the rest of the day. We started with a talent show, which was awesome! The musical talents were outrageous. Then we went to this classroom with our zone for a while. This elder from hawaii had brought a ton of hawaiian candy. I decided I LOVED sugared coconut. After that we went and WE GOT TO HEAR ELDER BEDNAR! I was so excited when he walked in! It was honestly the coolest meeting I have been in. They passed out 200 cell phones and we were able to text questions that went to his ipad, and then he answered a bunch of them right there. The questions he answered were Why do I feel inadequate?  What is your favorite scripture? one about resisting temptation, Why does guilt stay with us after repentace? Best missionary characteristics. His BOM hero, and how can we know god is listening. His wife also answered one about how we can keep ourselves worthy to marry a general authority :) It was so cool! My favorite thing that he talked about was that Christ taught in small groups, and it mentions a bunch in the book of mormon about how he taught one by one. Just shows how much Christ loves us individually. It was so amazing! I wish I could tell you all about it. After that, we ate dinner and then we watched the Tabernacle Choir concert from last year. They had a special guest who was in Les Mis on broadway. I was totally happy all day until they started singing Bring Him Home on the video. I BAWLED. It made me miss mom so much! Everyone around me felt so awkward, because I went from being so happy to being a mess. Haha as soon as the song was over I went back to being good again. It was so cute though, that night, the Hawaiian elder came up to me and was like "I saw you crying. I'm sorry!" and gave me a whole bag of sugared coconut. Hahaha it was the cutest thing ever!
My teacher is SO CUTE. She gave us all stockings! She filled them with good things for each of us too! Mine had vanilla bean spray from bath and body, raspberry and cream chapstick, junior mints, altoids, a lifesaver book, nail polishes, and a HUGE green apple. (everyone else got oranges, but ever since I came to the MTC Ive been obsessed with green apples and she likes to make fun of me for it so she put one in there.) She is so kind. I love her so much! I also gave her 5 bucks this week and she brought me some Dr. Pepper. Hahahaha shhhh :)
Well, I hope everyone has an awesome week! I love you all SO MUCH! I leave onJanuary 6th, 10 Days! I Can't wait to call and talk to you! Have an awesome week! xoxoxoxo -Hermana Manning