Transfer

March 4, 2015

         Today started off with a great trip to the temple and then unfortunately it kind of went downhill from that.  After the temple we went to the distribution center and a gift shop and bought some stuff for J.’s family and some scripture covers.  Elder L. decided that he wanted to go to McDonald’s to eat. I wanted to go home to eat so that we had time to work out, but he didn’t want to so we spent almost TWO HOURS in McDonalds wasting time and I was pissed. Then he wanted to go shopping and he took a full hour to write his notes, and then took almost 2 hours on the computer.  We are only allotted 1:15 minutes.  In the end, I had no time to work out except for a lame YOGA workout at the end of the day.  He was obviously punishing me for some reason…

Miracle #163: I contacted lots of people today even though it was p-day.

         The funny part of the day was when I accidentally contacted a former investigator of Elder Leon’s that doesn’t want anything to do with the church.  Elder L. just let me go right ahead without any warning.  …Less than a week left until changes.

March 5, 2015

         So I found out why my companion has been treating me like this for the past couple of days.  Elder L. is mad at me for “taking” his baptism.  Santiago chose me to baptize him and Elder L. think that I tried to be extra funny and friendly so that he would pick me. So not true, but there it is. 

         I got up this morning again to a dirty house and got a little bit annoyed, but then the other elders helped me do the deep cleaning that is actually part of our mission rules. 

In other news today, my companion hung me out to dry in a lesson today.  Our investigator was talking ridiculously fast and super slurred.  I understood everything, but it gave me a headache and this guy was TOUGH to teach.  For about 45 minutes of me trying to explain the lesson, my comp was silent and actually texting the whole time….Less than a week.

Miracle #164: S. passed his baptismal interview and everything is a go for tomorrow

         I genuinely can’t thing of anything funny today.

March 6, 2015

         Today was a lazy day.  Basically all day we were prepping for the baptism.  To be honest, the day started off badly as Elder L. was very resentful of me.  Towards the end of a companionship inventory I acted on a prompting that I had last night to re-ask S. who he wanted to baptize him.  We agreed to have Elder Ware drop by S.’s house to ask and we decided in advance to be cool with whatever he chose.  It ended up that he picked me again, but that little gesture really helped Elder L. to be okay with it.  We also went early to the baptism to be able to listen to a couple of talks about baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. 

Miracle #165: S. was BAPTIZED.  He was a little anxious because he does not know how to swim. He was a little freaked out, but my experience in lifeguarding really helped me to safely baptize him despite his fears.  It was an amazing and joyous experience for him and for me as well.

March 7, 2015

         Today started out as an amazing day.  We worked hard, taught, contacted, and found a lot of people to teach.  We had an amazing family home evening with J. and her family.  We did more and better contacting that we have done in a while.  Then it finally came time to wait for the call from our leaders about transfers.  We prepared one of the best drinks on earth call celestial mate which is shredded coconut, milk, sugar, and cinnamon. It was a really good time….until the call came and we found out that our sector got closed down and all of our contacts and progressing investigators will be divided amongst the remaining two companionship, one of which is very lazy and haven’t done much these past 6 weeks.  We have literally taught twice as many lessons as the other companionships.  That made me feel really badly about the work that I have put in in the past two transfers. But, Elder Leon felt even worse because he opened this sector 6 months ago and now he is seeing it die.  It was a really hard way to end this hard transfer.

Miracle #166 Elder Leon and I were able to resolve all of our differences and we will part as friends.

March 8, 2016

         Today was weird.  I played the piano in church as a special musical number.  It was the same hymn that my brother played for me at my farewell, “God be with you til we meet again/He is Risen” medlay.  It was very hard for me to say goodbye to another ward.  What is interesting is that Elder Ware and I have the same number of wards in our missions and he has been out for 15 months.  None of the missionaries have ever heard of another missionary having 2 sectors in a row for only 2 transfers.  So in that sense, I am special and unique, and also very thankful.  It is hard for me to not feel resentful about getting out sector shut down.  It is not fair, but it is my lot I suppose.  We also had one final zone meeting with this zone.

Miracle #167  We found someone who is going to be able to drive us to our transfer meeting.  It would have been near impossible to get there with all of our bags on a microbus and metro.

         There wasn’t a fun part of the day, but there was an interesting experience.  Today I ate a cow stomach sandwich that a member made.  This particular member really loves Elder Leon, but also really hates me because she thinks that I am “unfriendly.”  I guess there was a funny part of the day now that I think about the stomach sandwich. Daniela, one of the best members in the ward, sat with this sandwich in her hands for about 20 minutes…super hesitant to try it.  We made fun of her in a nice way!

March 9, 2015

         Today was just a day of really long goodbyes and lots of walking. It was hotter than Hades’ armpit.  It was so hot that even the native South Americans got sunburned.  I am not kidding, we were sweating while sitting in the shade.  Anyways, I didn’t even want to work today.  I am so sad to leave the ward that I love so much and I am so worried that all of the work that I have done will just fall apart and not get followed up on.

Our two young recent converts, the M&Ms

Miracle #168  Members of the ward feel and attachment to me even though I have been here a short while.  Reciprocal love is a powerful motivator. 

         The most fun part of the day was another family home evening in J.’s home with about 7 other members.  Basically it was just a party with all of the Elders and it was a blast.  We played a game that is too hard to explain but it ended up with everyone’s face covered in lipstick.

March 10, 2015

         So the transfers turned out pretty interesting.  We ended up not being able to fit all of our bags in the person’s car who gave us a ride to transfers.  I ended up having to leave my bags in the house and trust that the hermano would pick them up later.  He was so kind and he got them to me at about 11:15 tonight.  I was so grateful for his help.  The biggest reason why this change was interesting is because President Cook put me in an interesting companionship.  If you remember about a month back, I went on a division with Elder Castro who is a missionary that other missionaries do not get along with.  Yup, I am his senior companion now.  He is from Peru!  It is cool because I actually really like him and I think that we will do just fine together. 

My new comp, Elder Castro

 Miracle #169  Our chapel has a REAL GRAND PIANO in it!!!!!!

         The fun part of the day was that I got super excited about our new house and zone.  It is going to be a fresh start for me.  I know my whole house from before and I really like all of them. Also, our house is very nice for missionary standards.  I will include some pictures for you.

I haven't had time to organize my desk/card table yet.