Merry Christmas!

Hey everyone!
This week we celebrated Christmas (obviously) and also, big news, I'm getting transferred! Tomorrow, Tuesday, I am going to a city called Salamanca. It's a three hour train trip northwest of Madrid. The two things that I've heard from everyone is that it's very pretty and cold. I'm excited to see a new place, even though I'm going to miss Guadalajara a lot. There are so many great people here that I've met. Some good news is that in Salamanca, there's only a branch of the church of about 15 members, so I will get to know everyone there a lot faster.
My favorite part of Guadalajara was probably from when I first arrived. My trainer, Elder Molina, speaks little English, and I spoke little Spanish. It was a long first week because I could barely talk to anyone, but when I got to church on Sunday, it was all done exactly the same way as the church back in my home ward. The only difference was the Spanish. It had the same spirit, and that's one of my favorite parts about this church, that it's all the same around the world because it's led by the same person, Jesus Christ. The members here were all so friendly, and all of that helped me adjust a lot. I will be sad to go, but I'm glad that I was able to start my mission here.
Besides finding out about transfers, this week it was Christmas! On Christmas Eve, we had tried to set up some lessons, but obviously everyone was already busy, so we spent most of the day making cookies to take around to people we know. We spend the first half of the day shopping and making the cookies, then the second half delivering them. Then, that night, we celebrated Christmas Eve dinner with the bishop and his family. They made some really good food. We started with a few appetizer plates of toasted bread with toppings like tomato and cheese or salmon or shrimp or chorizo. It was very Spanish food, but it was all very good. Then we had the main dish of beef and patatas fritas and salad. That part was more Chilean, which is where the bishop's family is from. It was a very fun night. We had a bottle of apple cider with the type of cork that pops off when you open it, like a champagne bottle, and we had fun opening that.
On Christmas day, we woke up and opened our presents, then we got ready for the day and followed our normal study schedule. Afterwards, we went to church. We just had the sacrament meeting that day. I had been asked to give a talk about the birth of Jesus Christ so I did that, and also gave a farewell to the ward members there. I also played the piano for the meeting. Not much has changed there from back home in the Castaic ward, as far as how much I had to participate in Sacrament meeting sometimes. Anyway, it was a very good meeting. The primary kids sang a Christmas song, and all the speakers talked about Christmas. After church and after saying goodbye to the members that I wasn't going to see again, we went over to a member's house to eat lunch. They made a good big Argentinian meal of chicken and rice and salad, then we stayed there and played a bunch of games with their kids who are close to our age. Then we got to skype with our families! The other three missionaries here had already done it but it was my first time and even though the wi-fi was a little slow during part of the time, it was awesome. Then we went to a family of Peruvian members' house and ate Christmas dinner with them. The father works as a chef for a catering company, so he made some super good food. A type of roast beef with salad and rice and mashed potatoes, with cheesecake afterwards. All in all, it was a great day. Today we're planning on saying goodbye to people, then tomorrow is when I leave.
Besides all of that, we didn't have too many other noteworthy or mentionable things that we did. On Friday we had our last missionary choir concert in el Parque del Retiro, which is where all the MTC missionaries go and work every Saturday. It was pretty cool to see it again. It brought back a lot of memories. Also on Wednesday we went on exchanges to Torrejon de Ardoz again. I was with Elder Wade, just like last time, and we had a pretty good day. There are a lot of Africans there, so we taught a couple lessons in English, which feels really weird after 4 months of working in Spanish.
I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas, and have a very Happy New Year next weekend!
Love,
Elder Dobbs