Mission tour!

¡Feliz Navidad!

Well, another good ol' week of office craziness and fun! President invited Elder Berrett and I to go around with them to all of the Christmas Zone Conferences and we just got back last night. More about that later!

So last Monday I went to do some residency for the Stevens, one of the senior couples here, we had our staff meeting, and Elder Berrett and I locked ourselves up in the office trying to get as far ahead as possible on all of our office work for the week until the the trainers came in, ate some pizza, and headed up to the mission home. On Tuesday we were running ALL DAY getting the trainers with their new missionaries, training them on finance and residency stuff, fixing transfer travel problems (my favorite....), and getting everything prepared to leave on Wednesday.

So on Wednesday, we started off the mission tour with Málaga zone conference. In all the conferences we did a white elephant exchange which was a blast. Elder Berrett and I got to translate for all of the conferences, too, which I have really grown to love. After conference, we loaded up with the APs and all the senior couples (there are 3 of them: the Stevens, the Todds, and the Spainhowers) and got on our way to Murcia, which is about 5 hours away. We dropped them off at their hotel and headed to the zone leaders' piso for the night (sleeping 4-6 extra missionaries in a piso is always interesting...and really fun haha). Another conference there on Thursday, and we started the long drive across the country to Sevilla. We got there around 11:30, crashed with the zone leaders again, and got up early to do our last conference in Sevilla. We were all pretty tired by this point, haha, but we had an amazing conference there in Sevilla as well.

After the conference the APs, the Deeres, and the senior couples decided they wanted to go to Itálica (remember that place? The Roman Ruins in Aljarafe), but since Elder Berrett and I had been before, we took advantage of a chance to go an visit Jesús and Angeles. It was so great to see them! They are doing really well. Angeles is pregnant again! That was a big surprise. It was such a blessing for Elder Berrett and I to be able to see them again together. We didn't have too long, though, because we had to climb back in the van and head back here to Fuengirola! We finally got home from washing the cars and unloading around 10:30 last night and just went right to bed.

It is so great to be able to be a missionary during Christmas again. I love Christmas! It is such a great time to think of Christ, our Savior, and His miraculous birth in Bethlehem all those years ago. We watched a really great video in zone conferences of a cello/piano duet of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. It is awesome! I put the link on here.

I love you all so much! Merry Christmas!

Elder Mockler