Blue-eyed Christmas Blues

 December 17, 2014

            Today was a nice p-day.  I spent a lot of money on provisions so that I would have stuff in the new house.  We went to a massive feria (basically just street vendors selling stuff for a mile.)  
After that we laid around the house for a hour until we wrote our emails home.  I got to sleep for a little while and it was nice.  When we started our workday our appointments fell through so we resorted to contacting.

Miracle #86: through a series of slightly painful and awful contacts we ended up being late for an appointment, but as it turned out – not really because the person we were teaching showed up 1 minute after we did.

            I found out that Elder L. is a little overly optimistic as far as lessons per day go.  He doesn’t keep it too real, but that’s all right.  He is a great missionary and I think that we are going to kill it together.

December 18, 2014

           Aggghhhh, sometimes Chile kills me!  It was a good day, but so much weird stuff happened today.  We walked to a lunch cita that fell through so we had to come back to the house only to learn that the elders ate our food!!! Whatever, we still went about our day with animo.  In our lessons, we went from a good intellectual lesson with an open heart, to a lesson with an atheist who was making fun of our beliefs, to a lesson where both of us nearly fell asleep, to our last lesson with a really great family.

Miracle #87: The last family that we taught wants nothing more that to become members of the church and be sealed eternally as a family in the temple.

            One of the contacts we made today really was hard because it was with a beautiful blue eyed girl  who reminded me of someone at home.  I barely maintained my missionary mindset and focus when she tried to get super flirtatious with me and my companion.  She said she loved English and that wanted to learn more English.  We asked her what words she knew and then she told us that she only knew one word…KISS. I leaned over to my companion and whispered in English, “Of course she would know that word.”  It was so hard for Elder L. to focus, and me too, but whatever.

December 19, 2014

            Today we walked about 7.5 miles according to my pedometer.  We were on our feet for about 7 hours, but we did have great lessons today.  In the morning we went to teach English to a girl, but as we started she told us that she wanted us to explain our missionary lesson in Spanish.  It was great. Another lesson was also great because the young man that we have been teaching told us that he knew the Book of Mormon was true and because of that he knew that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the church was true.  That was a great moment for me and worthy of the miracle of the day, but then we went to teach a man who used to be an atheist.  During the lesson he turned and asked me why I was here on a mission.  We got on the topic of my situation with my Dad and his cancer and then my miracle happened.

Miracle #88:  Our investigator said the closing prayer at the end of the lesson and in it he asked that my dad would be healed from his cancer.  It really touched my heart.

December 20, 2014

            Today was weird.  We did my least favorite thing - morning contacts …. Followed my most favorite thing – insanity workout.  Then we went to work on a service project with the other missionaries in our zone.  I met a lot of new people and I really got along well with an Elder from Honduras, Elder Castro, who is just a great guy.

Miracle #89: We got to play charades today with a deaf Jehovah’s witness today. That was really a lot of fun. 

            We are getting along well as a companionship and the only problem that we are having is that Elder L. says a lot of things that are the exact opposite of what all the amazing elders in my last house said.  So I am a bit confused.

December 21, 2014

            Rough day today.  Church was good because I played a musical number and that turned out really well all things considered and I had fun doing it.

Miracle #90: A young woman, who we have only taught once, and her grandmother, who we have never taught, came to church today!

            So, I didn’t get to do my personal study again today and it is ticking me off.  I really look forward to my study time and I need it especially as a new missionary.  Instead we ended up walking around all day long.  We did end up caroling to a hospital which made my day much better.  It also made me want to be a doctor, like my dad’s doctor is, and reach out to encourage my patients in times of suffering.  I saw so many people who just wanted to see a smile and hear a song of joy.  I felt great love for those people.

December 22, 2014

            We pretty much contacted all day long again today.  My feet hurt!!!  But on the upside, we actually had a lot of great contacts. 

Miracle #91: A Chilean actually ACCEPTED our offer to help him! We helped him set up his Christmas tree.

            Other than that, our day was kinda chill.  We has a call to repentance in district meeting about pride.  Yeah…it was my call to repentance. Why does it have to be so hard to be humble.  On a lighter note, I found out today that I am illegal and could be deported J

December 23, 2014

            This is going to be the hardest Christmas ever for me!  Today we spent most of the day contacting again.  We did have an English lesson with the girl who came to church on Sunday  and afterwards we taught her about the Plan of Salvation.

Miracle # 92: She is more interested in the gospel than in the English lesson.

            We basically sang carols for all of our contacting today.  Elder L. and I got along really well all day long until we got in the house at the end of the day.  He doesn’t respect my opinion at all. I am going to have to learn how to not care about myself.