Monday, November 2, 2015

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.


No comments:

Post a Comment