December 24th

This week has been great! I will just tell you the highlight of the week though. So we live near a mall and Hermana Vera had the great idea about a week ago that we should sing Christmas hymns in the mall as a group of missionaries and pass out He is the Gift cards to all the people. We called up all the Santiago City missionaries to see if they were interested and they were! It turned out to be a bit more difficult than we had anticipated to get in contact with the boss of the mall though. We had told the other missionaries we{d like to do it at 12:30 on Tuesday and we didnt even get in contact with the boss until one hour before! At first the answer was no because there was something planned for the evening but we politely pleaded for them to let us sing for just 20 minutes in the afternoon and they conceded. We had about 45 minutes before it was time to start. Hermana Vera and I were rapidly calling every single missionary in the city limits! I was not hopeful that many would agree to hustle over to the mall during their lunch hour, but to my surprise, almost all of them said yes! As 12:20 rolled around and no one was showing up, I was feeling discouraged and nervous almost to the popint of nausea. Where were all the missionaries that had said they would come!? 12:30 rolled past and Hermana Vera and I were still the only missionaries to be seen in the mall. The boss lady came out and I thought for sure that she was going to tell us to forget it since we hadn{t started it yet and she had made it seemed like we were pressed for time. But she was so kind and smiled widely and told us to start whenever we were ready! At about 12:50 a couple elders showed up and within 10 minutes we had 20 more missionaries with us! Another miracle was that Elder Flores was able ot bring his guitar and accompany us on all the hymns even though one of his strings was broken! We had almost 30 missionaries in the last minute choir and I directed the group right in front of the HUGE tree in the middle of the mall. All the people on the escalators were ogling as we sang and people stopped to film and take pictures and listen and feel the spirit. I was beaming as I watched the group of missionaries sing songs of Christmas praise! It was an unforgettable experience and a great reminder to me that the Lord will always help things fall into place when our desires are righteous and we work by faith.

I wish you the merriest of Christmases and invite you to take the time to look for the Lords hand in your life this season. Take time to ponder the significance of His humble birth and incomparable life. May the blessings of Christmas shower you with joy!

Love Hermana Anderson