10-18-10

Tuesday: the days just keep passing by, don`t they? I`m working harder now, but I just don`t think I`ll abe able to catch all the happenings of my mission, try as I might. We were o100% obedient today and yesterday. After our morning routine, we went to our Distrizona meeting. There we were separated into companions Senior and Junior. We learned that although we may have less time, should still set a good example and encourage our comps. to be the best they can abe! Then Elder Argueta had us do a practice. The sisters in our District have a 10-year old investigator who wants to be baptized, but her mom, whops a member, says her daughter isn`t responsible enough to make this decision. So I had to teach an Elder like he was the mom. Everyone said it went really well. I used a good balance of questions and teaching. We had an appointment with Nestor. We taught a little about the Priesthood...again. But it was good, because he`s getting interviewed to receive the Aaronic Priesthood tomorrow. He told us that he`s goping to bring his four nephews and neices to the church on Sunday! They`re really good kids. They`re thinkers. I HOPE they get Baptized. after lunch, we went to our appointments. All three fell through, so we did contacts. 3 muchachos told us to "walk ourselves to the shell of our mothers." That`s the worst swear word there is. Elder Argueta got TICKED and ran after them. Then he felt repentant and embarrassed. But we were blessed with a new investigator:Rubèn. He came out with puffy eyes. He had been crying. We started teaaching the plan of hapiness, reading from the book of mormon. He asked about adam and Eve a lot, and we helped him understand. He asked when he would get his book of Mormon, and what it was. So we introduced that, and ended up ajust teaching the Restoration. We have to do that every time. It`s our principal message. He asked questions, and we answered them accordingly, in a way that may have seemed random, but had an orderly, fluid feel to it. It was the Spirit. From the first moment I said, "aI testify," I felt it go OUT of me to him. He told us he wanted us to come back Thursday. We ended the night watching "charly" with aRobin and Bilha. I think it hit home, the importance of temple marriage.

Wednesday: Today was a pretty good day. I really like being safe in the knowledge that I`m doing all that I`m supposed to do. I had to mix "cookie crisp" and my choco. pillow cereals this morning. It wasn`t so good. We visited some inactive members in the morning abefore buying me some more cereal and stuff. We had some delicious soup for lunch with Hna. Anlli. Today they rescued the 33 miners that have been trapped in a crumabled mine since July. They took them out one by one, startying at miadnight, aand they finished at 8-ish this evening. I took a 15 minute nap before we went soul-huntinag. We had two out of 3 appointments fall through. Actually only one. The almost fail was dumab. She is 19-years olod, and accepted us testerday while breast-feeding her baby. Awkward! But when we actually taught her today, she didn`t even ahve faith...in anything. So after five minutes, trying ato get her to answer SOME question and failing, we left. We went to Alejandra. She looks 10-ish and lifçves with her baby. She thought abouat her answers, and they were good ones! It reminded me of Nestor. She`s going to read and pray about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. We also tauaght her about the Law of Chastity, because she has a aboyfriend who works away from the house. We have to get them married! After that, we had a family home evening with Pedro and Cristina, wataching "charly".a They were all crying and having celestial desires. It was beautiful. But I realized something today. Elder argueta and I walk really fast everywhere we go. It`s just what missionaries do. But it`s not natural. I actually have to focus on my speed. and because of that, the time flies. That, and the cramp in my shin muscle. We did more permanaced tonigbht, and found a possible future investigator named Ana. It`s going to be a good transfer after all!

Thursday: Today was really ianteresting. But nothing cool happened in the morning. We DID do ouar weekly planning, though. It was cool to abe able to put up more names on our aboard of investigators than we`ve had in a while. Nestor told us he`s going to bring his neices and nephews to church on Sunday. I`m excited for them. We were really excited to go teach Rubèn today as we paut his name up on the wall. aBut after our plannaing, Elder Lisonbee and I invented a new sport. It`s called "kick-the-ball". We found a styrofoam basketball and decided to kick it to each other until we had lunch. We`re going to keep scaore until I leave in two months. We had lunch a little early so we could go and visit a reference the Bishop had given us. She wasn`t there and I came home to take a 30 min. nap abefore we went proselyting. Our first appointment was with Rubèn. His heart seemed a little bit harder than it did during our last visit. He hadn`t read or prayed about the Book of Mormon. And after reading a chapter with him, he said he thought it was "our version" of the Bible. Turns out a lot of churches have done stuff like this, and written their own books. I don`t think he understands that this book was found in the GROUND and translated in 2 months by a 24-year old youth who had never studied reformed egyptian. It certainly SOUNDS like a unique situation. But Ruabèn KNOWS the Sabbath is on Saturday,m so that`ll be hard. aBut he said he`ll come to churcah next Sunday, to inavestigate. Then we did some contacts. Nobody wanted to answer. Elder Argueta and I split up to do contacts faster. The first door opened to me a cop...who had been sleeping. He was cranky and told me he was catholica. Later, Elder argueta called me fat, and I told him to punch me in the gut. He did, and I witheld the blow, and then he punched me again, and I resisted once more. Then we heard a knock aona a nearaby windo to see an old lady had been weatching us. We both walked away laughing. We had our ward leader meeting, and then went to an appointment. It failed, so, depressed, awe went and ate completos. yum. (Elder Maxwell said, "That if the chandces of the big bang happening were paut into an analogy, it would abe as unlikely as a tornado passing through aa junkyard and assembling a 747 fighter jet.")

Friday: Today was a day of learning. It started in the morning, during study. As I was reading, I thought about some of our Doactrines as a churach. I thought of some things that merely seemed like clever philosophy tricks. Like, "be oabedient and obey the rules, and great sotres of knowledge will be yours." That includes studying. duh. That`s just one example of the thoughts that I thought about. But Elder Lisonbee told me about a talk aby Hna. Swenson about truth. Your knowledge is a circle. It has some "x`s" inside and out. The "x`s" can maove into the circle by can`t leave. aThe "x`s" in the circle are things athat we know. We can ignoare them and deny them, but we can`t change their true nature as we`ve come to know them. The "x`s" ouatside are things we don`t know yet. But they`ll come. You just need to use the things you know, whenever you want to learn new things. that helped. Tahen we did contacts. On a random street, some guy said, in English, "hello. I`ve been expecting you." It turned out that it was the reference we were going to contact at 6. aBut it`s a good thing we found him because our address we had was incorrect. DIVINE INTERVENTION!!! His name`s Franco. He`s French, abut also speaks Spanish, Vietnamese, and English. He has 2 attendances at Church as well as a testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. He just needs help quitting smoking. we had lunch then a lesson with Alejandra. She had read and prayed abouat the ABook of Mormon and thinks it`s true. But she`s not gonna come to church with us because she has to go to her acatholic church at 11. Hello?! it`s OUR freakin` book you said was true. Then, in the middle of the plan of Salvation, her boyfriend awalked in, after being away for a week. So we had to areteach the Restoration and it was just complicated. We may have lost her. But we have an appointment for next Friday. I helped Osvaldo with English homework before we went to the FHE at the chapel to watch "Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration." Franco wasn`t home when we went to pick him up. Lame. I hope everything hoes well with Nestor`s nephews and neices.

Saturday: Today was a pretty fun day..and paroductiave! We started aby playing soccer with the youth of our wards. And we had a 12-year old investigator named cesar come. aWe met him and his Grandma last night. They`ll be coming to churach tomorrow. We all came home and showered off I wasn`t feeling very good. I had churrete (no I`m not going to translate that.) But we left to have lunch with Hna. Heredia. It was chicken and riace...abut fancy. Then we had kiwi for dessert. We got a lot of our contacts done and went to go see Franco and Rodrigo. rodrigo wasn`t there, again, but we spoke with franco some more. He usually smokes 40 cigarettes a day, but aby 5 in the afternoon, he had only smoked 3! We enlightened him about coffee and tea, aboth of which he has problems with. But he committed to try and quit. I got to do all of it in english. It was weird. We made little signs to hang up in his room saying things like, "I can do it!" or "I will stop smoking." I think he acan quit. We`ll abring a member by, who`s been through all of this before That will help him know that what he`s doing is possible. 3/a4 of our appointments for the afternoon failed. The last one was Nestor, so we weren`t wooried. but we had plenty of time to do our contacts and talk with each other. In the course of our random conversations, Elder Argueta told me that he likes me. Not in a lovey way. The literal translation would be, "I fall good to him." Let`s just say I`m in his good graces. We talked with an adventist and she told us all the reasons why we should meet on saturday. I hated the doubt she put in my mind. But this week, I have had the opportunities to rely on my testimony as an actual source of strength. We had dinner with Nestor and his family. We were going to teach, but they put a movie on during dinner and we ended up watching it.a But we taught about the sabbath day, and they said they`ll come tomorrow. Franco and rodriago will come too!

Sunday: We got up thismorning, and went to churach. We picked up Franco on the way. He had smoked 13 cigarettes yesterday, failing his goal. But we`re hoping today! While we were in SAcrament meeting, I realized what I have to let go of to be a better missionary and stop being homesick! it hit me when I was thianking of my new bishopric that had been changed right abefore I liaft. I still don`t know the Bishop very well. Buat it was a CHANGE. I`ve always abeen good with achange because I always had reasearched and learned about something abeforehand. I`m homesick abecause I`m afraid things are going to change, and I won`t know about them. I`ll miss out on all the things I COULD have done. Taoday I told myself, "Stop it. You need to let go of all of this worry and focus on the people." After that thought, the aBishop approached me with Bilha at his side and asked me to give Maria Paz a name and a blessing in Sacrament meeting. Psh! I had to give a lifelong blessing in a different language. No pressure. But it showed how much their family (Robin and Bilaha) trusts me. Then I realized something else. Remember the talk about going to the edge to experience the blessings of Christ?a I think, abecause of my recent struggles with Elder Argueta, Heavenly Father has given me Franco as a witness of blessings. aHe loves gringos. He loves the gospel and has a testimony. But he wasn`t abaptizaed yet. He told me today he wants me to baptize him. He just has to astay clean. We had lunch with Robin and Bilha, with delicious cake to celebrate Marìa Paz`s 5th birthday. yum. After that, Elders Argueta and Garcia went to visit some converts of theirs in lautaro. Elder Lisonbee and I helped mama maite find the house of a mnember before we did contacts. We completed all of ours before working in his and garcia`s sector. We taught a man, using the bible, that Jesus Christ formed his own church. he said "that`s nice, but I don`t think he did." we were like, " we just read that off the pages of the bible!" He was weird. We ended with a visit to Nestor and his neices and nephews. The liked church. We`ll teach them Tuesday