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| Elder White returns home. |
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| 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 25th. 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.
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