Sunday, December 24, 2023

This morning we woke up a bit early so that we could watch the Zoom feed of our home sacrament meeting. It doesn’t always work out for us to watch, but today we didn’t want to miss it because they did a special sacrament meeting.

The music was beautiful (as it always is in Jonesville), and John Coakley gave a particularly good talk about light. When River saw everyone she said: “Dad, those are my friends!” We miss our Jonesville family.

We went to church in Benson, Arizona. There is some kind of connection between Marta and the bishop of the ward there. Sometimes these connections between people seem so tenuous to me. Like he is the doctor of the woman that Marta’s daughter is a caretaker for. But with Betty’s people -- any connection is strong enough to go out of your way to see someone :)

The drive from Sierra Vista to Benson was really stunning. I always think of Arizona -- especially southern Arizona -- as being dry and barren. But this morning a thick fog blanketed all of the mountains. Oswaldo tells me that this country is perfecto for the wines because of the elevation. We’re at about 4,500 feet -- the same as Utah Valley, where I’m from. So when it’s baking in Tucson, it’s much cooler up in the mountains.

There aren’t tons of birds here, but there are some really beautiful ones. All along the highway, if you keep your eyes open, you can see hawks perched up on the power line poles, or on bushes. When we pulled into the church parking lot, we saw a Chihuahuan Raven perched in a tree above the parking lot.

Church was beautiful. The talks were nice, but the music was even better. One brother sang “Away in a Manger” and the last verse he sang and signed -- which was the language of his mission. There was something noble in it all. I love sign language because it is so concrete. Also, a sister sang “O Come, All Ye Unfaithful.” I had never heard this song before just a few weeks ago when I saw this YouTube video with my cousin Luke Christensen and the BYU Young Ambassadors.

After church, we headed back to the house and got ready for Christmas Eve.

In Mexico, this is the biggest celebration. Christmas Eve is much more important than Christmas Day. And it’s celebrated with lots and lots of delicious food. Everyone gets gussied up, and they do a piñata.

For our Christmas Eve dinner, we had green salad, tamales, rolls, and this incredible pierna that Valentín made. It was a huge pork shoulder that he injected with orange and pineapple juice, and then he poked a bunch of holes in it and stuffed them with bacon, and then he draped bacon over the top of it.

The other culinary highlight of the evening was this special salsa called salsa macha. It’s a beautiful deep red color, and it’s got an olive oil base. The main chile is chile de árbol, which is not the spiciest chile in the world, but this salsa is very spicy. Just a drop is enough to really heat up your food. And the flavor is delicious! Oh, and speaking of spicy: River is not a fan of spicy candy. It’s too bad because all of the candy in Mexico is spicy.

For dessert we had fruit salad, guava pie, and Betty made this awesome peanut butter cup pudding thing.

Oh, and we did a piñata -- which was totally insane. It was absolute chaos, with big kids and little kids and even adults just laughing and having a great time. I was certain someone was going to get their teeth knocked out, but fortunately, everyone was safe.

And finally, I just wanted to express my gratitude for Ale and Ozzie for opening their house to us. It’s clear that Ozzie loves wine -- it’s such an important part of his life. And for him to invite a bunch of strangers who don’t drink into his house on Christmas Eve and to just be so kind and warm to us -- it’s’ awesome.

To finish up the night, the girls all took some time to take pictures in front of the tree for Instagram. My girls learned a bit about the art of posing from Vale and Martha’s girls (they are masters, as are most Mexican women).