October 7, 2015
Today was a fun pday. We started off by playing sports as a
zone, which consisted of me being goalie because I don’t play soccer (really I
wasn’t even playing as a goalie since I just did exercises on the goal
line.) Overall it was a good time
especially when we played volleyball afterwards. For about 3 hours we all just messed around
as a zone. After that we did our buys,
wrote our families, and ate lunch. By the time we got all done, it was 5ish and
my comp went to sleep. I got to work on the bikes and was appalled at the
condition they’re in. They are really
old, really crappy, really poorly treated bikes.
Miracle #394: I rode a bike for the first time in more
than a year. I must admit that my butt
is really hurt.
The fun part of the day was cleaning the house. So fun to clean up the filth of 2 other
elders. I’m pretty sure that they hadn’t
cleaned up in around a month from all the oil caked onto the stovetop. The good news is that for tomorrow, the house
is cleaned and the bikes are good to go.
The bad thing is that we are going to accompany the sisters tomorrow
afternoon because they’re both brand new in this sector. I’m not sure how I feel about being in a
sector with sister missionaries and I am especially unsure of how to be their
leader.
October 8, 2015
Well today was fun. All morning long, we did our weekly
planning. We ate lunch with the members
who live right next to us. Technically
we live in and add-on to their house.
After that, we has a service project out in the field with our
sector. We saddled up our broken bikes
and rode out. My butt is so not used to
a bike seat. I am going to have to get
used to it really fast though. Even tough the service was fun, I enjoyed the bike
ride more than anything. The best part
about the riding is that we can use our bags again!!! No, actually, the very best part about the
bikes is exercising all day long as we go out and visit people. It’s absolutely great!
Miracle #395: I met a member (the ward mission leader)
who is as nuts about working out as I am.
We gave each other some tips and ideas.
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| A calisthenics move called the dragon flag.... you have to lower your feet to this position and raise them straight up while only letting your shoulders touch the ground. |
October 9, 2015
Today was an interesting day. It started in the morning with a new leader
training thing where we learned all about how to be a good leader. One of the things that they really stressed
was believe it or not…having a clean house.
Weird considering that a LOT of my mission problems revolve around the
fact that I want to live in a clean house and the other elders don’t. Anyway,
because of the meeting we missed lunch and had to eat in the house. We have an
hour to eat, but we were done in 15 minutes.
I wanted to take the remaining 45 minutes to clean the filth, but my
comp wanted to leave. When I explained
to him why I was cleaning he decided to study more. It is a good thing it doesn’t bother me doing
it alone anymore.
Miracle #396: I
got to practice piano on a full size keyboard for the first time in more than 4
months. Wow!
The funny part of the day was having to turn in our bikes
with a list of all the problems of each bike.
I was kindof blown away that I had already made the list. For one of the bikes I wrote, “there is not
hope. Buy a new bike.” The treatment of those bikes was awful. The elders let the tread get so worn that it
was just flat rubber. Each bike had a
huge list of issues and we’re really hoping that by tomorrow we will have them
back. I am trying to be chill in this
sector, but you can really tell that my comp is new and just figuring out the
mission.
October 10, 2015
Today we practically didn’t do any missionary work. This morning we went to the mission office to
pick up and take our bikes to the shop (because the office didn’t have time to do that
yet.) As it turned out, the man was so
busy that he wasn’t going to be able to fix them for around a week. When I explained that I knew how to fix
bikes, he said well you can go and buy your parts and use my tools if you want
to fix them. FANTASTIC! It took about 2 hours, but we got our crappy
bikes fixed up and running. After that,
we went to lunch where they started cooking when we arrived. It was around a 2 ½ hour lunch followed by a
service project for a less active family for 3 hours. By this time it was around 8:00. When we
finally got out to work, the bikes needed even more help, and in addition, our
cita fell. It was a relaxed day where we
weren’t very productive.
Miracle #397: During the service project, we found out why this
less active family doesn’t go to church anymore. They don’t like hypocrites and
someone apparently offended them.
The funny part of the day was probably in the service
because we were sanding walls and EVERYONE got covered in white dust. Every time we took a step, dust flew
everywhere. The ridiculous part of the
day was seeing how little my comp knows about bikes. But today, he learned today how to replace
the brakes!
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| Carlos's cute baby boy, Carlos. |
October 11, 2015
Today was a pretty darn good day! This ward is really quite
friendly and I liked my first day here.
After church, we went to a baptism! Jazmin and Steven got baptized and I
got to assist. It is weird going back to
an old sector even though I haven’t been gone for very long. It somehow felt like it had been ages since I
had been there with them. There were
over 40 people there supporting the baptism and it turned out awesome. I got to baptize Jazmin and it was without a
hitch. The only bad thing was that it
made us miss lunch, but then a member gave us some sandwiches and saved the
day.
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| Familia Ruiz Lagos (crazy carlos) I love this family..... |
Miracle #398:
In the supposedly unreceptive part of the sector, we had 2 exceptionally
good contacts.
The funny part of the day was probably making the calls as a
district leader tonight. It was awful, but in the end I survived. Sadly, I am going to be doing this for a
while. I have to learn this sector fast
and figure out this new job. I don’t
want to be as rude or overbearing as I have been in my other sectors, so this
week I will just be chill and when I have figured out things a little more I
will be able to lead better.
Today was a good day.
The morning was dedicated to morning contacts. The only guy we found is already an active
member. After our studies and my exercises
we went to lunch with the bishop. After
lunch we spent an hour and a half cleaning up the area book, and now it is
finally organized. This evening we did street contacts from our bikes. It was
strange to get off a bike to talk to someone, but it was fun. I think that this sector is really fun
because going from house to house is super fast on a bike. It is a blast to bike 10-20 km a day, and it
makes me super tired at the end of the day.
Miracle #399: We had a division today! We also had a great contact with twins.
The funny part of the
day was a lesson with a lady who is very slowly progressing and goes off topic
a ton. In less than a minute, we go from
talking about prayer, reading, and going to church to talking about how sad it
is that Zone left One Direction. We are
teaching way more “snakes” than normal here in Portezuela. It seems pretty
weird. I am not a fan.
October 13, 2015
Well today was fun.
It started with district meeting.
We had our first leadership meeting and it felt weird being in
there. My comp has it rough because he
is so new to the mission that he really has to jump in without really having
any experience. My new companion doesn’t like
how loud I am.... he´s always telling me to be quieter, so I told him that no
matter what he says I’m going to be loud because that’s who I am, and I have
always been that way. It´s really frustrating when the missionaries in
your ward (him and another sister missionary) think that your personality is
not adequate for a missionary. But this
really is how I was born and despite almost 20 years of trying to modify my “loudness”,
I haven’t made much progress.
After
the meeting, we went and replaced the rim on my back tire. Overall I spent a little over $50 fixing all
of the bikes. We have to see it they
will hold up.
Miracle #400: We had citas all day long and that is a
miracle because it was raining all day long.
There were two funny parts of the day and both had to do
with bikes. The first was seeing the sisters
getting “help” from members to “fix” their brakes. Their brakes came loose, but instead of
tightening the cable, they just took the bracket where the cable sits and bent
it closed with the cable situated farther back.
That is why these bikes are so trashed.
I fixed their bikes and taught them how to do it themselves in the
future. The other funny part of the day
was riding in the rain and getting spray all up our backs. We got filthy! This is why we are told to not ride our bikes
in the rain. Haha! It is great fun here.
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| The consequences of riding our bikes in the rain. |
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