Agüitarse

November 1, 2010

Agüitarse

Hello Family,

Reporting in after another long week. It went slightly better than most recent weeks have gone, we have a baptism this Saturday! It's been forever since I've had a baptism, but we're finally going to get one. It's that 9 year old Karla girl, she had originally wanted to be baptized on her birthday on November 21st. But Her dad still hasn't showed up and the Sister missionaries in our ward have another little 9 year old girl of a less active family getting baptized so the Bishop wants to get them both baptized at once. So this Saturday we're having a double-dunk. Which is sweet, and Karla said that her non-member family members are going to come so that'll open up some more doors hopefully.

Other than that though things haven't been doing so hot. I am really beside myself about what to do about my companions, the other day I was only barely able to convince them to NOT buy a sports illustrated swimsuit edition magazine when we were at wal-mart. It's bad, on one hand I really hope I get transferred out of here at the end of this transfer so I don't have to put up with them anymore, but on the other hand if I were to leave the two of them together they'd surely get into trouble. Oh, I'm so tired of putting up with all of this. I really want to get out of here.... On friday we had a "specialized training" meeting with our Zone and President Hansen, the subject couldn't have been more appropriate, it was obedience, obedience, obedience. It was a good meeting, I really liked it, President had some good stuff to say. And I think he was trying to scare some of the older lazier missionaries like Elder Lang, by talking about stories of missionaries who wasted their time on their missions, went home and had lousy lives. It was pretty hardcore, he was saying that we pay a high price for whatever pleasure we think we are getting when we are being disobedient, and we are denying ourselves the presence of the spirit and revelation to help our investigators and find new ones. During the meeting I was pretty impressed and felt as though something was getting through to my companions and when we got back we could make some goals to be more obedient. Well this wasn't the case. It was like the parable of the sower, the seed fell by the wayside and President's words fell on the deaf ears of my companions. When we got home they criticized President, the mission rules, and just about everything else. They're really paying a price for it too, we had exchanges with our leaders this week. And Elder Lamoure, who boasts of his whole 9 months as a missionary, can't even speak spanish. We were tracting in the trailer park, talking to people we found in the street and our Zone Leader we were with, would say "Okay Lamoure, this one's yours, and we're not going to help you." And well... It was pretty pathetic, he would start talking a little awkwardly to them and stop in mid-sentence, his mind completely blank, or perhaps a "stupor of thought". He would look at us for help, and I could just see a pleading look written all over his face. But nope, we didn't say a word until the guy we were talking to got kind of freaked out and then we jumped in and saved him. He felt pretty down the whole day, after several more experiences like that. I did feel kind of bad for him, but I also felt a "That's what you get!" Or as they would say in Houston "Tha' wha' you get foo-!"

Okay, I'm out of time now, not much else has happened anyway. Have a good week!

-- Elder Rice