Welp this week was... not sure what it was. I feel like we´re just following the same pattern of doing bazillions of contacts, finding lots of people, and then never finding them again: no one who really wants to progress. It's honestly getting quite frustrating and both me and my comp voiced that out loud to each other several times this week. We are trying to patiently wait for the miracles to come but... it seems like its takes an especially long time when I don't have that. I just want to finish out well.
This week started out with Pday. We went to Las Piedras and went shopping. I got some Mate stuff to bring home so you can all try it. As you can see in the first picture, that's me, but I was only drinking hot chocolate. We can't drink Mate on the mish. Tuesday we got calls and said we were having zone conference. My last one. We went on Wednesday and it was sad. Not only was it my last one, but Pres and Hermana's last one too. The people who are leaving in the zone always have to give their goodbye testimonies there and that was sad. I honestly had no idea what to say. I just cried. There are no words that I can put to a mission and the experience I've had here. I was the only one leaving from the zone, that was embarrassing, everyone gives the people who are leaving such a hard time. Lame. Then we had the conference which was awesome. Just the thing I needed to hear and learn to finish off strong. They talked about internalizing our mission purpose. It was cool. Then Pres and Hermana showed us some pictures of the new president. Then they said goodbye to everyone and there were so many tears shed. I didn't have to say goodbye cause I will see them in the mission home when I go and have my final interview with Pres... but everyone else, it was their last chance. It was a sad day.
The only other really exciting thing that happened was our activity. Not many people came at first, but at the end it turned out well. They decided it was too late to deliver stuff the actual day so everyone will go this week to take the baskets. We decided we better be good neighbors too and so we went to meet all the people in our apartment complex. It was fun. Everyone was so super nice and it made us feel really good. Then we even made a basket for our neighbor. She hasn't been there the last couple of nights so hopefully we can drop it off tonight. They put crackers, salty and sweet jam and butter and the Book of Mormon. That's what we have here. And it's what everyone eats for Merienda. That's their third meal because they don't eat dinner here. We just have to be patient with the references while they are coming. I hope you guys all went and did something too. If you haven't done it, go do it this week!
We had a couple of investigators, but they didn't go to church last week so we basically just went and visited them all week telling them they had better get to church or we couldn't come by anymore. Two of the three showed up to church yesterday. It was cool. We made one lady cry. Her name is Graciela. She was one of the investigators that Hermana Kirkham and Lopez were teaching before, but she wasn't progressing at all. We got her to stake conference though and she came yesterday to church. She lives in a difficult situation. She has lived with a man for 15 years. They sleep in separate rooms. He gets drunk. They never talk. Sometimes he beats her. We decided to talk with our branch president to find help with what to do. She has tried to kick him out before, but he doesn't go. Pres had some great advice. He said as a church we will never tell anyone to break up a family, but as a church we strengthen, we want eternal families, not broken ones, so he said if she loved him at all, she should try and help him and try and save him as well as her. She agreed. So on Thursday we will talk with him. Ah! Maybe we can change his life, or help him let the gospel change his life. But now she can't get baptized this month... its a big deal. Every night our district leader asks who we invited to be baptized, who will be baptized this month and how we will meet the goal we put for baptisms and everyday... we tell him nothing. It's hard. But Graciela knows the church is true. She has felt a change in her life, and she notices the difference. She is happier, and has more energy, a little bit of everything. She's so sweet. I just hope the best for her. She deserves it.
We have met with lots of less actives this week on president's request. We are supposed to do whatever he says, but it's been really discouraging. We try not to let it show since we have been going with president himself and I guess it worked because he said if we could get to his age with the enthusiasm we have now and being able to smile and laugh like we do, we would have very happy lives. He's cool. But no one understands the doctrine. The mish pres said there are no less actives or inactives, just people who don't understand the doctrine because if we really understand, we could never be able to turn away from the truth. It's a blessing to be able to comprehend these things, really. But it's just hard to see all the people who don't want to understand the gospel, and we can't do anything for them.
Anyway... I gotta get going. We are going to be at president's house all day cooking Bolivian food and I'm going try to do chocolate chip cookies. It'll be fun. I can't believe how fast time is going. I just hope I can accomplish whatever the Lord wants from me. Good thing is... with all the patience we are having to exercise, my comp and I are doing well. We are each other's strength. It's been good. We have fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment