I got really irritated at the Zone today because for the zone activity they decided to watch a move. There was no bonding or talking or having fun as a zone, simple a stupid movie. What a waste of 2 ours of my 8 hours a week of personal time. It’s a total cop out of I-don’t-want-to-plan-anything activity and I had to go. I ended up going late and one of the zone leaders got mad at me for being late to the movie. It is hard to support such a lame waste of time.
Miracle #578: S. revealed to us that she is not legally married, but she and her husband are talking about getting married so that she can be baptized.
The funny part of the day was leaving with M.B. Every time he accompanies us to our citas, they fall through. Today was no exception, but this time our plan C worked out. It was entertaining to me to see how flustered it makes my companion to teach the law of chastity. He talks around the point until in the end I have to teach the lesson.
March 10, 2016
I am ready to end this training. I just am not good at it at all. My companion is still afraid to do many of the important missionary tasks that I am supposed to be teaching him. I have intentionally started to not do a lot more things and that is making it more obvious to him of all the things that he is not doing. The end result is that he is feeling more and more depressed. I could do everything, but then he wouldn’t learn and that is the whole point of training.
Miracle #579: Elder J and I made up after our little discussion yesterday regarding the stupidity of watching a movie for our activity.
The funny part of the day was definitely the service project with the zone leaders this morning. There was an extremely bitter aloe vera plant in the house where we were working. While I was gathering a pile of weeds, I heard a choking and gagging sound and looked up to see Elder Johnson with a leaf of the plant in his hand. The funniest part is that the bitter flavor doesn’t fade from your mouth for at least a half an hour.
I am feeling really discouraged about how this training is going to end. I feel like my companion is a very talented, eloquent, and charismatic person. But, he is not assertive in any way. People are going to stomp all over him in the mission and in his life if he doesn’t stand up for himself and tell people how he feels. One thing that makes me worry about how well I am training him is that he thinks that leading a sector means being punctual. Leading is being productive during every hour of every day, not just being on time. I wish that I could just give him a what he needs.
March 11, 2016
This morning was super rough for us. We were absolutely not getting along and my companion was 100% shut down. I got a little irritated because I needed some critiques from him on how to improve and work better, but he is not capable of giving or receiving constructive criticism. This is an essential missionary skill. I tried talking to him but quickly realized that he wanted to be alone. So I asked him how much time he needed and after telling me that he needed 30 minutes, he started reading. I left him alone and cleaned the house. Then 30 minutes later, he still wasn’t ready to talk so I finished the cleaning. He continued to read in order to avoid me. After a long lunch he spent 30 minutes in the bathroom to continue to avoid me. Finally, I just sat him down and talked to him. In the conversation I couldn’t take his passivity anymore and I could see that leading the sector was killing him, so I decided that we would bag the rest of the 12 week program where he is supposed to take over the leadership.
Miracle #580: We were on time for all of our lessons and we both felt a lot better. He is much happier to follow than to lead.
Another funny part of the day was when a cute little kitten crawled all over my companion only to suddenly stop and squat on his tie, peeing on his tie.
Now that I am leading the sector again, we are doing a lot better as a companionship. I guess that the companion couldn’t handle the pressure of leading the sector even though he is fully capable of doing it. He thinks that he will be able to do it “when he is obligated to do it.” He is much happier when I lead, but I think that I will still try to do every other day of leadership.
This morning we had the very last of the training meetings and President Cook taught about the 10 or so expectations they have for new missionaries and all but 1 of them were things that I have specifically focused on teaching to Elder H.
Miracle #581: We had fun again in the work. We also had 2 contact lessons which have been very rare in the past week.
The funny part of the day was when I tried to contact a cheese sell and she ran away. The funny part was that I actually wanted to buy cheese, so we followed her and bought a kilo of delicious cheese.
March 13, 2016
Today was decent. It started out with a priesthood session for the stake at 8:00 am and then a special conference for all of Chile with President Nelson. It was all done by satellite transmission. The conference was short, but pretty good. After having a few minutes of study at our house, we went to a lunch with this super weird and rude family. We had to leave early from lunch to go teach a lesson which ends up being pretty good. We even set a baptismal date.
Miracle #582: D. R. invited s over to visit and we thought it was to give us food. We didn’t need any food, but I felt like we should go anyway and as it turned out, she asked us to come over for support and help. It is always a good feeling to see how listening to the spirit answers someone else’s prayer.
The funny part of the day was trying to contact while working at a stand in the church’s women’s fair. At one point, this very drunk man got beat up by a bunch of women. It was also funny to see how much more successful the sister missionaries were at contacting. The people literally run away from the elders, but they give their phone numbers to the sisters. People pay a lot more attention to the sisters in general.
March 14, 2016
My companion stopped trying all together. He is sick of me and he simple does not want to get along anymore so he just quit. I am feeling a lot better with myself because I am striving to be a lot more patient and kind, especially when I have to correct him. I don’t think that I have ever apologized as much as I have in the past 12 weeks in my entire life. Today was all right, all thing considered. We contacted a ton and found lots of people today but our lessons weren’t all that good.
Miracle #583: Our ward mission leader went out with us and we had a contact lesson and a normal lesson.
The funny part of the day was when I little annoyed with a lady who runs the drug addiction recovery program. (Okay, it wasn’t all that funny, but it is all I have for today. ) Anyways, she was talking about how the people need to desire to leave drugs in order to be able to help them. I compared it to the gospel in that we offer the people a better life, but if they don’t want it, they will never get it. She said, “well I don’t agree with you there. You don’t know what people need, maybe they don’t need to get off of drugs.” What? That just seems crazy to me.
March 15, 2016
Today was really good for me. In the morning we had a zone conference, after which we did a special division with the assistants (by suggestion of the president.) I had a lot of fun with Elder Rosero, a Colombian who is about to finish his mission. He is a little hyper, but a good teacher and I learned just how fearless one can and should be when teaching the gospel. Despite the shortness of the day (just four hours of work), we had 4 lessons so that was really a good day.
Miracle #584: For the first time in a long time, someone really ripped into me and gave me a good, yet hurtful, critique. He called me out on a lot of my issues, but in the end I felt good because I need to know how I can improve. He definitely kicked the chair out from under me.
There was nothing particularly fun about the day. It was an ego check day for sure. There was no corrections to my actions (because I am trying my best and doing what I should.) There is just always a better way, or different way to do things.
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