The Warnes in the Chile Rancagua Mission: Christmas Deliveries

Today I would like to tell you about our activity last week. Of course I am speaking of Christmas. We decided to repeat last year and make several kinds of treats to distribute on Christmas Day. President Warne is such a good sport to support my sometimes crazy ideas—it usually involves washing tons of dishes. Sister D____ helped out by making over 250 oatmeal raisin cookies. Still, Christmas Eve day was hectic and stressful as we finished baking, counted, ran errands, counted again and started assembling the trays. As we did last year, we began in Buin, drove back to Tupahue, then to Rancagua, on to San Feranando and finished in Santa Cruz. There were enough treats for each missionary to have 5 or 6, which meant we made up around 27 trays! President Warne offered a prayer for each group and we had a great time shaking hands and hugging each missionary (respectively) and wishing them a very happy day. Each missionary is able to call his or her family sometime during these few days. Sometimes it is a challenge to set up calls where families do not have computers, or phones, but the local leaders are always willing to help out. We also passed out Christmas cards from the first Presidency, and then the zone leaders of each zone took over for their planned programs. We really appreciated the senior couple who drove two hours to Talca to deliver treats to those zones, drove another hour back to Curicó for Curicó I and II. Then they went one more hour to the small village of Chepica to bring and share Christmas dinner with the missionaries there. That is selfless service and they were glad to do it.

It was a very different way to spend the day but we enjoyed it very much. As President told each group of missionaries, they will never forget their Christmases in the mission field. After all, what could be better than celebrating the birth of Him whom we represent as missionaries? We are so grateful to be with these amazing missionaries who work hard every day to find and invite people to Christ, and we are also grateful to have shared Christmas Day with them.