3-27-11

Monday: We got up this morning to play soccer as a zone. About half showed up, but we still had about 10. Elder Hickman, one of the Elders with whom we`re living, was the best goalie out of everyone. Our Zone Leader, Elder Reeves, is a prideful little fella. He whined when he lost, and rubbed it in our faces when he won. But the worst was when he wo0uld take shots at a goal. Today, he hit Elder Hickman in the face twice, kicked his thumb, threw the ball incredibly hard at his face, and in the Nether regions. But after all that, Elder Hickman never complained. He`s a good man. We went to the mission office. It was my first time since my first day. It was a lot less scary. I tried to order new scriptures for a long time, but never found out how. In my email, I got letters from Mom, Dad, Kevin, and Alan. The family is planning a lot of vacations! Blessings of the mission! Kevin asked me how I can be so happy on the mission. I think it`s just attitude. When I wrote how hard it was at the beginning of my mission, he thanked me for speaking abou thow the mission "really is." He expects it to be bad. But Alan? Alan is having a blast. His trainer`s ill-mitivated and Alan just keeps pushing him along. He wrote a long letter, just for me. I sent my reply to his hand-written letter today.

Tuesday: We had our distrizona in the city of Talcahuano. It smells like fish there. Elder Kemp is in my zone now, so I get to see him every week. While we were there, i read something, and I wasn`t sure if it was in English or Spanish, but I understood the meaning. Words are just meant to communicate ideas. I missed the temple. I miss going to the quiet, time-free place. Elder Mcconkie actually said that the temples are a direct connection between us and God, and that our spirits are strangers to the concept of time. I want to attened again. The mission and life are the same. We come in, knowing nothing (maybe a little preparation) and having a trainer, good ones and bad ones, to help us. We progress and learn up to a point as a student. But eventually we have to be the trainer and teacher. We start to learn things all over again. Then we come home to the open arms of our parents. But if we`re thinking of our family all the time, we get distracted or sad. I think we can find the solution to happiness in the mission by looking at the example of life that God made for us: the veil of forgetfulness. If we forget our life before, we can have joy in the mission. Also, Faith and love are the same. A drunk guy (one of six) told us he was saved because he had love for God in his heart. I asked how he showed that love. FAith without works is dead. So is love. We have to share that love by thoughts, words, and actions. That love for the lord takes us to repent, and that leads us to baptism, and the Holy Ghost. All 8 of our appts. fell through today. Pablo`s going to enter into the First communion in the Catholic church because he`s been too busy for us to teach him. Ugh!

Wednesday: Today, we had our Zone Conference with the President and all the Zones of the North. before we left, Elder Gomez complimented me on my cursive. I encoureaged him to start practicing and develop that talent of HIS. He committed to start writing in cursive from now on. And he has been! I was so proud of him. We had a really good confearence today. Our assisstants are really good. Elders Vincent and Rubilar. They have a really effective and entertaining way of teaching. Sister Swenson spoke of the Passover. She taught that it`s to remember when Jehova delivered the Children of Israel from Egypt. When they had to cross the red sea, they had to enter the sea a little. Past their knees, their chest, and when it got to the point when they were about to be submerged in the ocean, Moses was commanded to part the sea and allow passage. Sometimes, in life, we have to give everything we have, EVERYTHING, before we can receive the blessings. Whenever Moroni spoke with Joseph Smith, it was always about Elijah`s coming. When he was 17, he couldn`t have understood. Even when he was 23, when he translated 3 nephi 24:8-11, he couldn`t have understood, much less invent, this prophecy. But when Elijah came in Section 128, he explained work for the dead. Turning the Fathers and sons to each other, linking all humanity. Sealing is the whole point of EVERYTHING!!! THAT was Joseph Smith`s life work. He didn`t know that from the beginning. HE. WAS. A. PROPHET. OF. GOD.

Thursday: Today`s been a pretty depressing day. We worked all morning, planning out the next week after a really cool comp. study. We made a really good reference system to better find the ancient investigators from the Area book. During one of our contacts, an old Grandma came up behind us and yelled at the contact, "Don`t listen to them! They`re liars!" We were like, "Hey! What are you doing?!" She left, and during another dcontact, 20 min. later, she came back and started yelling again. I know that there are lots of cool missionary stories like that, but when you don`t have ANY investigators it`s really hard to face. Elder Bernal had to go to the other Elder`s sector to interview a convert and we went on divisions...for about 10 min. until Bernal called me back and said there was a change in plans. One really funny contact was an old Lady. We asked where she was off to in such a hurry. She told us she was going to church. We thought for a minute, then we were like, "Do you want to come to our church on Sunday?" haha. Another lady was like, "I can`t attend to you right now, I have surgery on my hands this monday." I thought, "What about today?" All 4 of our appointments fell, as well as our 12 backup plans! That`s how little we trust Chileans. 3 backup plans each. I heard, the other day, that Elder Mckonkie said that spirits are strangers to time. We always want things to come sooner or stay longer and vice versa. It makes sense to think that a way to make happiness eternal would need not only a body to last, but maybe take time away entirely. But how would progress work if all things were before us? Would everything be instant gratification because we`d have everything we`d ever get? strange.

Friday: Today was pretty hard for me. I`m not sure how I`m going to be able to stay in this sector for another 2 1/2 months. We got up on time and did all of our studies and planned out our day. We went out in the morning to find less-active members, and invite them to church. Out of the 8 addresses, we heard 8 people inside but not even one came out to answer us. We did find a possible new named Carolina, but she told us that she already had her religion. We had completos for lunch. I fit 3 into my stomach before the sister was satisfied. It rained while we went from appt. to appt. as each one either ignored us, didn`t have time, or wasn`t home. We did contacts for 6 hours, and only 20 people talked to us, but not one of them wanted to listen. Today was another bust. We don`t have any investigators that listen to us or have time to. My thoughts turned to home, where I don`t have to feel guilty if I`m shy. Where I don`t have to force myself into people`s lives. I read through my notes in one of my notebooks and found some of the literate photographs that Elder Barajas and I made that night in August where we couldn`t sleep. A wave of homesickness came over me so suddenly that I had to throw up. I don`t know what I can do better. After I threw up and Elder gomez came up to me and we talked. It was just nice to have a friend. I said a prayer of thanks to Heavenly Father and my emotional Roller-coaster came to a halt. I felt at peace. I hope that we can teach someone soon.

Saturday: Last night, I couldn`t sleep. I almost did, until Elder Gomez asked me what my favorite moment was, that didn`t involve girls. I said it was seeing my dad as I got down from the plane after being in Iowa for a month. I don`t know why, but I had a "vision" or image of Daddy having cancer and dying before I got home. I said a prayer, asking Heavenly Father not to take him. Anything but that. I couldn`t take it. I stayed awake with my nightmare until 3.30-ish. Then i dreamed about Daddy yelling at me. but I woke up feeling better. We planned and went out to do service to the Fuente-alba family. We painted their fence and garage door. Then we got some medicine for an Elder in Elder Bernal`s district. Pablo and Celinda, our last investigators, both told us they didn`t want anything more. Well, Pablo just ignored us for the umpteenth time. But I spoke directly to Celinda when she told us she didn`t like our teachings. I looked her in the eye and said, "You are mistaken." She never listens to our explanations, so this got her attention. I bore her a powerful testimony about baptism. She said that this wasn`t the best time for her. We were depressed for 5 sec. and I decided not to be. I told Elder Bernal we were gonna kick Satan`s butt. We had a lot of slammed doors, but I felt a fire growing inside. I taught with more power than I ever had before. We found a historian/racist/ atheist that insulted me a lot. After my testimony of Joseph Smith, he was speechless. We found 4 little kids that want to come to church, and they came to the ward FHE. We also found other new people to teach. Today, I was a missionary.

Sunday: We got up this morning and went to the ward/mission correllation meeting. We had a stressful time thinking of who we could put as progressing investigators. It was a short list. We worked so hard this week, and it wasn`t our fault that the people wouldn`t even open up their doors to receive us! Nobody was in the Sacrament Meeting for the first half, but then Cecilia, a lady that attends every week (except last week), but has yet to be baptized. We put up an appt. with her and coordinated for a member to come with us. There`s hope! We went to our appointments and they all fell through. A hobo came up to us and asked us for money. He was hungry. We offered to buy his food. On the way to the store, we found a drunk guy that claimed we were trying to let the world see our good works. He talked about random things. He told us to cast out the demons from the starving guy. He suddenly put his hands on my comp`s head and pushed down, hard, yelling, "Get out of there, Demons!" It hurt my comp, but I was laughing. I didn`t feel bad about buying on sunday. I`m not gonna be like the Pharisees that got after Jesus for healing on a Sunday. So if a starving hobo wants some cheetos, I`ll get `em for him (he asked for cheetos, but we bought him a ham sandwich...much more healthy.). We visited Hna. Marìa and Hna. Soledad. They made pancakes and it smelled like Halloween with the air. Hna. Soledad told us about how good her kids are, in comparison with Catholic kids. How he holds up his hand and respects women. I felt her mother`s love for her son, and i felt like she was talking about me. I cried a lot as she bore her testimony. She and her mom gave me hugs. She reminds me of my mom and Aunt Becky mixed. I felt the love of my family tonight, and it doesn`t bother me that our investigators let us down as much as it had. I won`t let myself let THEM down.