Finally a PHONE!

October 22, 2014

         Today was great! We started p-day early to get a 40 kg sack of ties called a Fardo.  It cost about 11 dollars per person and there are some treasures in it!  After going through the mountain of ties for an hour, we got some super ass…(Ass is a type of food here and it is a missionary joke.)  I earned some super Ass after single-handedly carrying that fardo for literally more than a mile.  It was VERY hard.  We only had 2 citas today and both of them fell through.  One of them was a 3.5 mile walk during which our miracle happened.  We had our young investigator with us and I felt so bad for him having to walk all that way without anything to show for it.

Miracle #30: About .75 kilometers from our destination, we asked a gut how far we were from Santa Rosa and he gave us a ride in his truck!!

After this nightmare, we found out that the person lived WAY out of our sector.  We were finally able to drop M. off at the futbol workshop at the capilla. We went and did our shopping but were unable to finish.  On the way back we ran into a crying and distraught man who came from a cancelled workshop.  We walked with him and comforted him, finally making it back to our house.  All in all we walked 10.76 miles by the rough estimate of the awesome step counter I got in my package.                            October 23, 2014

         Today was another day.  We had our last meeting with the president which was fun actually.  I personally think he is the best president possible.

Miracle # 31: We got our phone back!!!
         Other than that, the only real noteworthy part of the day was when we/I told D. that now that he has his mission call, he will feel Satan working harder than ever to tempt and discourage him.  He went all quiet and after a moment, he said that he already felt it.

October 24, 2014

         Today was full of literally miracle after miracle. 

Miracle # 32: Not a single cita fell through and we have 3 new potential investigators.        

        The first real thing we did was go to the bishop’s storehouse with one of our investigators.  Elder S. got to learn all of her backstory.  I say Elder S. because I sort of zoned out once I realized how similar her story was to my oldest sister’s problems.  She has a very tough life.  After the storehouse, we had a lesson with an 11 year old kid who can’t read.  He is this little tiny kid and I don’t think that he gets much to eat or any help with his school. After that lesson, we took our young investigator M. to meet with Humberto. We had a great lesson and then we went to another appointment and taught a family home evening lesson that was mas o menos.  Finally, the last appointment of the day was with I.  We were really looking forward to teaching him because he is always very prepared. Unfortunately we dread his forbidden-fruit Jennifer Lopez look-alike daughter.  Wow! 

         I feel like many of our successes and miracles are directly related to the more meaningful and specific prayers that we decided to start offering yesterday.

October 25, 2014         

Miracle #33: While teaching a lesson to a drunk man, he said that he sincerely wished all of the blessings that he has ever received to be ours….  God loves everyone.       

        The worst/best part of the day was when our drunk investigator hugged us goodbye and he KISSED my neck.  No me gusto.

October 26, 2014

         Today was ….a Sunday. Really our day started out at 5 am when we went to a Capilla Abierta at another sector and we were doing street contacts. 

Miracle #34: We met a man who we had contacted weeks ago and found out that because of our reference, he is taking lessons and reading the Book of Mormon!           
        We had two other lessons and one was the object lesson that I used to do with the missionaries in Washington with the push-ups and candy.  If I do enough pushups, then the other person gets to have a piece of candy.  It shows that no matter if we accept Christ or not, he still will do whatever it takes to pay for our sins.  We can chose to accept his sacrifice or not, but whether or not we choose to use the atonement, He will pay the price.  I did the pushups and the person in the lesson got to choose whether they wanted the candy or not.  I ended up doing the pushups and busted out 215.  It was a good lesson.
 Our other lesson was with a less-active woman who is trying to come back to church.  She is insanely attractive and it is hard for me to remember Spanish.  Seriously, I kind of don’t look forward to sitting through lessons and not being able to make eye contact because she is so unfairly gorgeous. I have decided that apart from PMS, women are God’s greatest creation by far.

October 27. 2014

         Today, in a word, was LONG.  Elder S. has a crazy bad ingrowntoenail so we had to take a 3 hour trip to visit a doctor who said we needed ot come back tomorrow.  My miracle happened en route:

Miracle #35: I held a full conversation by myself with a Chilena in the metro.      

        We are going to go on divisions with other missionaries tomorrow because for the next 2 days, Elder S. won’t be allowed to walk and we have some solid citas.  That means we can’t do anything on p-day, which is actually fine by me.  I would like a day to be able to sleep. 

October 28, 2014

         Today was really boring.  Elder C. is pretty lazy so we didn’t do any contacts at all and we spent so much time in the house.  My miracle was this:

Miracle #36: I went the entire afternoon without a lick of English and I didn’t die at all.        

        By the definition of missionary fluency, I am fluent, so my companion says.  He claims that if I can understand 80% of the language and speak my mind (which I am eternally blessed that I can), then I am fluent.  So the rest of the day was extremely boring.  I can’t do anything and I have already studied for 4-5 hours. I hope that Elder S.’s toe heals quickly for more than one reason.  As much as missionary work is exhausting and frustrating, it is at least work...and work is good.