Saying Goodbye to friends

Elder White returns home.

Elder Nelson gets tranferred

November 11, 2015

          It was a very meh p-day.  The zone leaders called us last night to invite us on an excursion of theirs to climb Cerro San Cristobal (funny because by the rules we have to ask on Monday to leave the mission so technically it was breaking the rules.) My companion wanted to go so sadly we ended up doing something that I did a month ago and wasn’t excited about doing again.  They also planned to go out to eat, which is a waste of money that I didn’t want to do either. I wasn’t in the best of moods, but in the end, I did get to know one of the new elders in the zone.

Miracle #459: On our way to cerro, I was able to memorize 5 scriptures

         The funny part of the day was visiting a family and watching their clock in order to keep track of the time so we wouldn’t be late to a division.  As the time approached for us to leave, we got a phone call from the waiting elders.  Turns out that the family’s clock was nearly 10 minutes slow.  We had to leave, flying on our bikes to get to the division.  The other fun part of the day was wither meeting some English speaking German tourists, or eating in Taco Bell.  I personally think Taco Bell was better!

November 12, 2015

         Today was good.  For the first time in over a week, I was able to do insanity.  I really missed dripping with sweat.  I’ve been listening to general conference in English for hours in the last few days and it is really helped me to get some new ideas.  The conference is FAR better in English than in Spanish and I feel badly for those who don’t understand English.  Today was weekly planning and comp. inventory and it kindof made me feel badly.  I came down pretty hard on my companion and when it came time for him to tell me what I could change, all he said was, “Get angry less.”

Miracle #460: We gave a direst lesson about repentance to a less active member and I think that it went really well.

         The funny part of the day was when I asked my companion if he would rather have me exercise during his personal studies or get up earlier.  He said that he would rather not have his sleep interrupted.  It was also funny when I received a stuffed animal cow from a family for no reason.  The is the second time someone has randomly given me a stuffed animal.  The first time it was a dolphin.

November 13, 2015 15 MONTHS in the mission!

         Woohoo!  I only have 9 months left, or 8 ½ considering my release date is July 25^th.  Today was pretty dang good.  We had a lot of lessons and a lot of biking. We had to bike out a good 10L to visit some people and I had the brilliant idea of jamming the phone in my helmet strap so that I could listen to general conference talks.  I got to listen to over an hour while riding and it was great!  We went from lesson to lesson today with only a few holdups.  I did get irritated with my comp for more that one reason today.  The first was when we were planning for our district meeting and I suggested that we do a practice, bur he refused.  It old him that all of our meetings thus far have been lame, so we really should put more effort into preparing them.  He still refused.  GAHHHH!

Miracle #461: Shoot, this is a tough one.  5 of our 6 lessons promised us that they would come to church on Sunday.

         The funny part of the day was when (this morning) I reminded my comp to always carry a spare tire tube with him.  He ignored me and then my suggestion proved prophetic when he, not paying attention, ran his road bike with it’s skinny tires, through a storm drain.  Needless to say, it really messed up the tire and the frame of the wheel. When I told him to pay more attention, he made excuses.  When I asked him if he had the bike tire tube, he made excuses. Once again I can identify with how my dad feels when he tells us to do something and instead of doing what he asks, we make excuses.

November 14, 2015

         Today was great! I woke up at 6:00 to cut a log that has been sitting in our yard for ages as a service to the member we live with.  After tat, we had to go to a stake youth activity where the youth did one entire day in the life of a missionary.  We got an awesome kid named Sebastian Ponce as our “apprentice.”  We started with studies, which was hard for him, but was really good.  By the time that we got done with our studies, it was time to go back to the activity for lunch.  It was the smallest lunch I have eaten here in Chile, but after only a little complaining, the three of us hit the streets to work.  We had 3 decent lessons and the hast hour, our lesson fell through so we decided to teach the kid how to contact.

Miracle #462: The very first house that I felt like contacting actually let us in and we taught a pretty good lesson.

         There were 2 funny parts of the day and both had to do with me stupidly falling down.  The first was when we were studying and I lost my balance on my exercise ball.  The other was when I went to turn onto a sidewalk, but underestimated my speed and fell headlong into a cement ditch.  Luckily, at the last second, I was able to jump off the bike and leap the ditch, thus aboiding a faceful of concrete.

November 15, 2015

         Today was a really good day.  It was also really depressing.  Church was good today except I was supposed to play a musical number, but at the last minute they told me that the program was too long and would have to cut the number out.  Turned out that the meeting ended 15 minutes early….ugh.  After church, we had lunch and went to our miracle lesson.

Miracle #463: V. was a contact and a lesson from last week.  In this time since we met with him, he spoke to his wife about us, and she admitted to him that she had been baptized into the church a long time ago. During our lesson this week, their son told us that he really didn’t like organized religions, but he felt differently about the LDS church. It was a really cool lesson.

         The funny/fun/sad part of the day was going to a farewell meeting that our mission started to put on for missionaries who are going home.  Basically, all the members are invited to attend to hear the testimonies of the departing missionaries.  I went to say goodbye to Elder Ware and Elder White, who are easily my best friends in the mission. The other really sad note is that we found out that Elder Nelson will be transferred.  We were wayyyy bummed out about that and he took it kindof rough.  He is a really great missionary and I will miss him.

November 16, 2015

         I’m beat tonight!  I have no clue why, but I had no energy today. Overall it wasn’t a bad day. It started with a good district meeting lesson. (our first good one) It was sad seeing people leave the zone, but it is what it is.  So lunch today was rough.  It was really good food, but it was with a family that got so upset about the candy issue.  Well today they decided to chew me out for using the word “po” like a Chilean.  Po is short for the Spanish word pues, which literally means “well,” but Chileans use it at the end of a word to add emphasis. Or just because they darn well feel like it. Si po and no po are the most commonly 'po'd' words, and mean yes and no, but with a little extra onda.  They told me that it is uneducated, so I told them that when you learn how to speak the language in the trenches, that is how you speak.  One of the sister missionaries form Mexico joined in the gang up on Elder Colvin for being “uneducated”, so I just shut up. It was hard to not say something when they were telling me how civilized and cultured people speak and live.

Miracle # 464: V.’s wife found us talking to one of her neighbors today, and while talking to us told us that she would be going back to church. AND, she invited her neighbor to go with her.

         The funny part of the day was watching my comp eat a bowl of essentially pure sugar with sweetened condensed milk.  I tried to convince him that it was super unhealthy to eat, but he doesn’t care.  I guess it is his “po”.

November 17, 2015

         Today was a way good work day. We did everything right today.  We left the house and worked well together.  By the end of the day we taught 7 lessons, which is really unusual for me.  The miracle was the first lesson.  WE had a decent lesson with M., who is planning to be baptized soon.  Usually he talks our ear off and we can’t get a lesson in.  But today, I whipped out my 15 months of experience and answered all of his questions with scriptures while at the same time staying focused on the planned lesson (miracle for me). Throughout the course of the rest of the day, we taught tons of new people and there were several great contacts.

Miracle #465: This morning we had a lesson with a less active member and her husband.  Her husband didn’t end up being there, but luckily we brought a member with us to the lesson so we could still teach.  This was a good thing, because the sister opened up to us and was able to talk about her concerns with out her husband there.

         The funny part of the day was brainstorming with another elder about designing t-shirts.  We will see if the other missionaries are interested.

Sick Week

 November 4, 2015

         My companion and I are getting along a lot better.  Today we had a pretty good p-day.  It started off playing minute to win it as a zone which would have been more fun if we hadn’t lost.  It was still pretty entertaining.  After the activity we went and wrote and bought a few things I bought some push up handles to play with and enjoyed doing a workout with them.  After p-day ended, we had a fairly great afternoon because pretty much for the first time in this sector, our appointments didn’t fall through.  There typically isn’t anything exciting to report on p-days.

Miracle #452:  E. Blaser (my one week companion) and E. G.(my current companion’s trainer) are alive despite getting shot at.  The missionaries might get pulled out of their sector because it is so dangerous there.

         There are 2 funny parts of the day and both had to do with the bikes.  The first was when I biked down a flight of stairs (admittedly dumb and dangerous) and when I got to the bottom, I looked up to see an absolutely mortified woman watching me.  I was pretty scared myself, but I lived.  The other hilarious part of the day was when a dog took off after my companion just going crazy.  He failed to notice me as I came up on him from behind.  My plan was to give the little bugger a solid kick in the butt and teach him a lesson.  But, at the last second, he swerved right in front of my bike and I ran smack dab into his butt.  He sure did run off quickly.  We were laughing about that for a long time.

November 5, 2015

         Today both sucked and was awesome.  I was horrible because all day long my stomach was bothering me until finally at the end of the day, I vomited.  It started right after lunch and I though it was from eating too much, but I felt so crappy that I had to lay down.  I was still feeling poorly 30 minutes later, but decided to try to suck it up and keep working.  It was not fun to have to contact most of the day while feeling sick.

Miracle #453: When we went back to the house to restock on Book of Mormons, I said a prayer for a miracle contact (cause I needed motivation.)  After the prayer, we found 2 super interested new people to teach!

         The funny part of the day was getting an inspection of our house from our zone leaders.  I have been working on our house for weeks, so I wasn’t worried about it.  I have also been in our zone leaders house which is one of the messiest missionary houses I have been in.  I mean, it is an absolute pigsty.  So today, they cracked down hard on the messiness of my stack of ties in my closet, saying, “Elder Colvin, you need to organize your ties.” I almost replied, “and you need to throw the rotten meat in your frig away.”  In the end I just said, “ Alright, I’ll do it.”  On the bright side, I have all my ties neatly organized now!

November 6, 2015

         Today was rough.  I woke up nauseated and stayed that way until lunch time.  In that interval we had to bike about 15 km. overall in order to do a house inspection and go to a lesson that fell through.  I didn’t really eat anything for lunch and went out to work still feeling poorly.  During the lesson I felt 1000 time worse and I could barely stand up because my stomach was cramping so badly.  The pain flared up for the rest of the day and it was accompanied by an impressively noxious fit of gas.  Basically, I was miserable all day long.

Miracle #454: A group of kids that we taught last week, read and did everything we asked.  In fact, they even read more from the Book of Mormon, and remembered what they read.

         The funny part of the day was the activity tonigh. I had a dang good time even though I was running to the bathroom every 5 minutes.  We played the flour game with the coin.  It started off all right but gradually deteriorated to the point that the kids just starting sticking their faces in the flour.  When we played a missionary round, I lost and got covered in flour.  I tried really hard to remain cheerful with my comp., but it was really hard given the fact that I don’t feel well.

 November 7, 2015

         I slept fitfully all night with horrible cramps and bad gas which was so explosive that I would wake myself up.  This left me feeling very tired.  We had a district service project this morning which was actually really fun because our district is duper fantastic.  After lunch, I was crippled once again by pain for an hour or so.  I really had no energy to work, but I finally kicked my own butt into gear, said a prayer, and went to work.

Miracle #455: My stomach didn’t bother me for the rest of the day after my prayer.

         The funny part of the day was probably hearing a random evangelist song in the street today.  I listen to the song when I work out so I know it really well, but it was weird to hear it in the street. 

November 8, 2015

         Today was another hard day.  I spent an hour of my morning with terrible diarrhea.  I recovered just in time to go to church.  I was grumpy all day because whenever I had to hold it, I got terrible cramps.  I was very short tempered with my comp, no fault of his at all.  I was just feeling badly.  The best part of the day was an open house that was held in another ward.

Miracle #456: While we were contacting for the open house, we contacted a family who had already received an invitations, but I convinced them to go and they went!

         The funny part of the day was when the zone leaders brought a drunk homeless person to the open house.  I guess the Lord’s house of prayer is for everyone.  To me it is interesting to see how God is helping me get through my work with this sickness. In the morning I feel crappy, but as we leave the house, I miraculously get better and I am able to work all day long.  Then, as we get home, I am in worse pain that ever.  I don’t know what the heck I have, but I don’t like it.

November 9, 2015

         Today was a pretty fun day of divisions with Elder Nelson.  The day started out with yet another rough morning in the bathroom.  But it got better until after lunchtime which it was so bad that I had to go back to the house to wait for my stomach cramps to pass a little.  We left while I was still hurting, but after a couple of hours, it finally went away.  Today all of the planned lessons fell through so we didn’t get the chance to really teach much.

Miracle #457: Even though the lesson fell through, I still got to meet one of the best investigators in this sector.  I have wanted to do this for quite some time now.

         The funny part of the day was trying to contact out in the fields of their sector.  I couldn’t walk because of my stomach but I was fine to bike.  The people who live out in the country are so stinking rich that they all have intercoms and on almost every occasion we were told, “we don’t need you here.” That ended up being a failed missionary experience.  Elder Nelson had never contacted out there, so we were hopeful to see some results, but we didn’t.  At least we learned that their fields are not ready to harvest. At least I had a really good time with Elder Nelson.  He is a really good guy, a hard worker, and a good missionary.  I have a lot of respect for him.

November 10, 2015

         Today was a great day.  This morning Elder Nelson and I spent our entire personal study time talking about one of their investigators and brainstormed on ways to teach and help them.  We actually came up with a lot of ideas and I hope they really help.  These past few days I have had some crazy eye and heart opening personal spiritual revelations and this has led me to be a lot more aware of the spirit.  I feel an urgency that I have rarely ever felt on my mission, and an excitement that had been waning in the past few weeks.  Today we had some really good lessons, especially with a less active member where we talked about choosing today.  She finally committed to go to church and to read. 

Miracle #458: We  were just riding our bikes along and some greeted us with, “Hola Hermanos!”  Typically, I would have just kept riding, but I felt an impression to talk to them, so we turned around and went to contact them. They are very nice and scheduled an appointment for a lesson on Thursday.

         The funny part of the day was visiting a family who just recently bought a dog.  The poor little guy was running around be terrorized by their 3 year old daughter.  The other funny part of the day was when a less active member called us to cancel a lesson for today that didn’t even exist!

Another Good Week

October 28, 2015

         Well, I’m starting in on my second journal!  The pages are a lot smaller than in my other one, so we will see if I keep on writing the same amount.  Today was p-day and sadly I spent the majority cleaning the house.  Again, even after almost a month here, there is still so much crap to throw out, organize, and clean.  Little by little, we are chiseling away at the chores.  I was cleaning from about 9 am until a little past noon.  My companion helped me for a long time so that was good.  I used up the rest of my monthly money to buy fruit for the week and we chilled in the house for the rest of the day.  I did do a pretty killer callisthenic workout ending with 200+ pull-ups and 300+ push-ups.  The most productive part of today was probably having our much needed comp inventory.  My comp confessed that he is struggling with me mostly because the way I do things is not the most discrete.  If the house needs cleaning, I say, “the house is filthy, I’m going to clean it.”  Or, if the area book is awful, I say that it is awful, and then I fix it.  I try to do things the right way, but sometimes it comes off as offensive.

Miracle #415: Hard to think of one today.  It was a lame day.  I can do a frog plank to a handstand. 

         The funny part of the day was learning that Elder Nelson, and elder in my district, is the son of one of my mom’s friend’s best friend.   She saw a picture of him on my blog and recognized him!  It sure is a small world.  I thought it was also funny that I literally cannot nap for more than 20-30 minutes as a time.  I wake up after 20 minutes and feel as though I slept for hours.  It is pretty nice!

October 29, 2015

         Today was a pretty good day to be honest.  It started off with an early bird workout session and was followed by a trip to the center of Santiago to take care of some Visa business for my companion.  We were able to some home, study, have lunch, and go to the chapel to work on the computer a little bit.  After finishing all that, the rest of the day flew by.  We had very few hang-ups and most of our plans worked out.  Just like any other day in the mission, some of our citas fell through, but for the most part it was a good day.  One of the most exciting parts of the day was when the family P. from Capitan Avalos brought me mate.  I have been missing my mate for 3 weeks, but now I don’t have to miss it anymore!

Miracle #416: We had a lesson with the A. family in the chapel, which they hadn’t entered in years.  The lesson was amazing and at the end, the bishop and his first counselor showed up randomly. 

         The other part of the day that was pretty cool was wen one member accompanied us to visit a less active lady.  The member has a son with serious health issues and he needs a strict no-gluten diet, which in Chile is super expensive apparently.  As it turned out, the less active lady has a daughter with the same illness and learned how to cool tons of gluten free food.  When she offered to teach the hermano, he just about cried.  I just kept thinking, “Wow, blessings really do come from accompanying the missionaries.” My comp and I get along a lot better when we aren’t contacting all day.  I’m going to really hope and pray to start having more lessons and a few less contacts.  The bummer is that like every new sector I’ve had, this sector was really lacking on potential new investigators so contacts are a necessity. 

October 30, 2015

         Well today just took it out of me. I haven’t been this wiped in a long while.  We did our weekly 30+ km journey to the boonies of our sector.  Throughout the process, we decided that my bike is around 3 times harder to pedal than my companions.  After riding my bike for 3 minutes, my comp was already spent.  We had some pretty great lessons today and did some contacts.

Miracle #447: We contacted two 10 year old kids who just started telling us that they always like to talk about Christ.  It was really odd, but cool.

         The funny part of the day was probably when the sister missionaries had me fix their bikes.  It was funny because the problems were simple, yet they were amazed that I could fix them. I don’t know why, but in this sector I get to use my talents a lot more than in previous sectors.  As much as I’m starting to like this sector, and love my district, I am feeling like I have been on the mission forever and it should be over by now.  Maybe I am just not truly converted, but I find it the work monotonous and a teensy bit tedious. There are fantastic moments, but it’s funny how few there really are in comparison to the boring/frustrating/crappy moments, and yet, somehow they make it all worthwhile.  

October 31, 2015

         Well it was my second and last Halloween here in Chile. Once again I wore the scariest costume of all, I was a missionary!  It’s so scary that sometimes people look out their windows, see us, and run!  This year we had to go home an hour early, which didn’t bother me one bit because no one wanted to talk to us anyways.  We contacted a lot of the day, but also wasted a considerable amount of time when the members asked me to help with some music stuff, but then not doing anything with me.  Overall, the day was pretty good.  Elder M. finally had a get to know you session with me, which at least helped me understand him better.

Miracle #448: We had 2 contact lessons for the first time in this sector.  One of them was a worker on the Santiago temple. 

         There were a few funny parts of the day like photo bombing some people taking their Halloween pictures, having all of our appointments fall through and contacting a vampire.  Honestly, for me the most ridiculous part of today was contacting a lady in our part of the sector that the sister missionaries are teaching!  It is funny because we gave the sisters everyone who we were teaching who lived in their sector. 

November 1, 2015

         Today was okay.  I fell asleep in church and one of the members gave me a ridiculous amount of crap about it.  Multiple people took pictures of me and made fun of me.  It pissed me off, but I DIDN’T react poorly at all.  Then a member showed the sister missionaries the picture just to make fun of me some more.  I erased it from his phone, and then he somehow recovered it and continued to flaunt it through the church.  To my credit, I still didn’t loose my temper, even though I was really ticked off.

Miracle #449: With one last division, we made it to the mission standard today, and we finished our leader calls by 11:15.

         The funny part of the day was talking to a returned missionary about his companions on his mission.  It is really hard to be diligent when your comp doesn’t care.  There are very few missionaries who have a problem with leaving the house late or having 2-hour lunches. 

November 2, 2015

         Today was entertaining.  This morning, we did morning contacts and the normal routine, but at the last second, the zone leaders and us decided to do division today.  I got to leave the sector and go with Elder G. for the day.  It turned out to be a decent day, especially because we got a lot of food. The people we visited here were all stellar! It kind of made me a little bit jealous.  The only bad part of the day was that our day went way too late. We finally got home at 11:00 P.M., which is the latest that I have ever gotten home.  That is just way too late! Anyways, it was a fun division and I learned quite a bit.

Miracle #450: There was a crazy small world moment today. It just so happens that of the 2 members that I met today, one of them was Hermano Soto.  When he found out that I was from Spokane, he told me that he had a companion on his mission to Argentina who was from Spokane.  Turned out that his companion was Paul Nibarger!  What??? Brother Nibarger is in my home ward, lives a block from me, and was my home teaching companion when I was a young teacher!

         The other funny part of the day was going to a house and getting super trunky when I saw a huge liter of 7 dachshund puppies that were less than 2 weeks old.  They were so cute and I just couldn’t get over it. It was also fun belatedly celebrating one of the missionary’s birthdays.  A family put on a little party for the elder and we went to support him because he is struggling a little bit. 

November 3, 2015

         Today was a pretty good day.  After a rough district meeting lesson, we had a really good day at work!  For the first time, I felt like we really did our best.  We had a good lunch that ended on time and a bunch of lessons later on in the day.  The coolest part of the day was switching my bike with another Elder’s bike.  This new bike is way more legit and now we ride faster. It also has suspension.

Miracle #451: As one of our citas fell through, I felt what was almost certainly a prompting to visit a reference.  It just so happened to be his only day off, so we got to teach him.

         The funny part of the day was probably practicing a few skits for a ward activity on Friday.  I realized that I actually like acting and I am not horrible at it.  I calculated that we rode our bikes about 14.5 mph. I am a lot less tired because the bike is so much better.  With a little extra energy at night, I am helping my companion learn English.  He is already pretty good but just needs practice. 

I am more that a little excited for p-day tomorrow!!  

Zone Conference X 2

October 21, 2015

         Today was a fun p-day! Today I also broke the pedal off my bike and had to fix that before going to a district activity where we ate a big Nicaraguan lunch and had a blast bonding.  The district we have is fantastic!  It was all fun until Elder Valle sprained his ankle horribly while playing basketball.  I think that it was about as bad as when I sprained my ankle so I felt for him.  Other than that, it was a rather uneventful day with a few lessons and a few promising future investigators.

Miracle #408: Everyone had a good time in the district activity.  Usually no one wants to be there, but today everyone had a good attitude.

         The funny part of the day was when the valve on the gas can wasn’t working so I took a look at it and then decided to get changed before fixing it.  I wasn’t out of the kitchen for even a minute when my comp broke the valve!  Man, now I know how my Dad felt when I would break things.  I got it fixed and working with just a little irritation.  The other funny part of the day was seeing how happy Elder Ware is despite the fact that he is sick.  He is finishing his mission and has worked really hard.  It is almost like his body is telling him that he is done, all worn out.  Despite that, he hates resting in the house so he works hard and plays on p-day and essentially doesn’t give his body the time it needs to recover. 

October 22, 2015

         Well the day was decent.  This morning was pretty fun because we had a service, which was building a kit house that is just a big shack.  It was fun because around 10 missionaries helped to build the house.  In reality a senior missionary led the project and 2 elders helped him.  Everyone else just messed around for 3 hours.  But it was really a fun project for me because I love to work hard and build things. 

        Riding bikes is the best!  One of the reasons that I love it so much is that we don’t have to pay for public transportation, and the other reason is that I don’t have to talk to my companion as we are going from one place to the next.  The bad thing about bikes is that I out-ride my companion so I often have to stop and wait.

Miracle #409:  I was able to use my building and carpentry skills for the first time on the mission.  It was fun!

         The funny/ridiculous part of the day was trying to fight with the church computer to print up maps for our sector.  After an hour long battle, I finally got some decent maps.  It was also weird because this evening we found 5 less active people within 10 minutes.  There was also an exceptionally funny contact where we knocked the door and a girl came out.  As we started to talk to her, her father stopped a conversation that he was having across the street, crossed the street, and yelled at her to go back inside and for us to leave.  Chilean manners are very different from American culture.

October 23, 2015

         Today was exhausting. I started it off by doing a full insanity video of the second month (an hour of sweaty killer work out.) Later on, I chopped a ton of fire wood, which also wore me out, especially my hands.  I got a few nasty blisters.  The most tiring part of the day however, was most likely riding the fact that we rode bikes about 33 km.  We were both exhausted.  It also was a pretty good day of work.

Miracle #410: Even though it was her birthday, one of the members still went to a lesson with us.

         The funny part of the day was probably asking to use the bathroom in a very humble person’s home.  It was funny because I ended up peeing in a bucket because they don’t have a working toilet.  That really wouldn’t be funny in and of itself, but the fact of the matter is that this family has a flatscreen HD TV and cable.  Talk about having your priorities mixed up.  The other fun part of the day was making a super tasty walnut paste out of a ton of nuts that people gave us.  For about 30 minutes we were cracking open nuts and joking around.  As far as missionary work goes, today a bit uneventful.  He taught several lessons, but none of them wre particularly impressive.

October 24, 2015

         Today was a bunch of wastes of time, or at least mostly wastes of time.  We spent too much time doing certain things.  This morning we did even more service, bumping up our service hours to around 8 for the week.  (The ideal is around 4 per week)  We then had a series of extended visits  to a few people.  I feel like being the bad guy and cutting off all the casual conversations, so the contacts went too long.  We also didn’t have too many contacts today, but the ones that we did have were really good.

Miracle #411: We were able to pass by around half of the people, we teach and invite them to church tomorrow.

         The funny part of the day was probably when we were talking to a member and out of nowhere he just starting swearing.  One minute he was talking to me about working out and the next it was ghetto trash talk.  Another funny part of the day, was when a lady told us that she respected our religion but didn’t want to hear what we had to say.  I told her that if she really respected us that she would listen to us and try to understand our perspective.  Our message doesn’t destroy the faith of people from other faiths, but builds upon their understanding and opens their minds to new understanding. 

         I made the decision to take the reigns in this sector next week because we are just not productive working as co-leaders.  My companion has only been on his mission for about 5 months so it is really hard for him to know how to lead.

October 25, 2015

         I wonder if I will ever stop being tired.  I am just always so worn out at the end of the day.  Today was pretty good.  I realized that I have already met 80-90% of the active members.  This ward is really getting stronger and is one of the largest wards of my mission.  Today we had 92 members which is about twice as large as most of the wards that I have been in. Now that I know the members, I was finally able to help set up divisions for the week.  We had a stellar day set up for after church, but like usual, nothing turned out.  We had one really good part of the day, which was a lesson with some brand new investigators.

Miracle #412: E., one of the new investigators, did not even want to participate in the beginning of the lesson, but by the end, he decided that he wanted to learn more about our message.

         The funny part of the day was probably going out with our exceptionally young Elder’s quorum president, who is a recently returned missionary.  The whole time we were out looking for people, we were sharing stories of apostasy from the mission.  South America is really full of apostasy. 

         Making the district leader calls on Sunday evening are my least favorite part of the mission. But, I really really love and admire the missionaries in my district.  They work hard and it is so great to hear from them and hear about all the good work that they do.  It is just hard to stay up late calling people.  I am learning a lot though and it is good for me.

October 26, 2015

         Today was a weird day.  This morning we had to go to the zone conference of the other half of the mission so that my companion could get some shots he needed.  Our zone conference is tomorrow, so it was almost as if we got a sneak peak of our conference tomorrow.  We ended up working very little, but we had a missionary correlation meeting where I had to try to keep everyone on topic.  (That is a lot to ask for a half ADD missionary.)  We also had a really good family home evening with one other families we teach tonight. 

Miracle #413: The very first family home evening of the S.S. family was a success.

         The funny part of the day probably was when I did a bike swap with a member who went out to do some visits with us. It was hilarious because his bike is a BMX bike, which means that a missionary was out riding on what pretty much looks like a chldn’s bike.  I really liked the bike, but to brake you had to put your foot on the back tire!  It was way fun.

October 27, 2015

         So today was the real zone conference and I have to say that it was really quite good. It seemed to me like everything that they talked about was specifically meant for me personally or for one of our investigators.  After the conference, we had to do some interviews for some people who are going to be baptized.  I was worried about it, because I haven’t done that before, but it turned out well. 

Miracle #414: We applied the zone conference to our 2 lessons this afternoon and both worked out really well.

         The funny part of the day was sitting with Elder White in the zone conference and just making fun of him the whole time for being dead (he is getting ready to go home.)  I really do love that missionary. He taught me a lot.  I am trying hard to be a good district leader, but it is hard. I think about my district all the time and how I can help them. I am so lucky that they are all such great missionaries.