February 14th 2011
Hello family..,
Well this week was horribly cold, again. Like 30 degrees once more for a few days, actually I guess it wasn't too bad because we did go to the Temple on Tuesday but other than that it was not a good week. It came to a final and brilliant climax of epic on Sunday (this seems to happen a lot, I wonder if there is a pattern here). Not a single investigator came to church, we were doing our usual sunday morning round up and even though it wasn't raining and the weather was reasonable nobody wanted to get up to come to church. We even had two people who when we stopped by were getting ready to go to church and yet they never showed up. Not very many members came either. The gospel principles teacher didn't come (which is odd because she's the bishop's wife, she's usually always there) so it was up to us to teach the lesson. There were like 4 people in gospel principles, four people other than us 7 missionaries I might add. It was probably just as well that nobody came because we were woefully un-prepared, and it was a dumb topic anyway, about the the scattering and gathering of Israel, something completely unimportant to investigators and new members.
Well after church we decided to swing by Minerva and Dianna, they didn't make it to church for some mysterious reason. We went to see if they were okay and to remind about a youth fireside that night. We go in there and they were a little bit more cold than usual, it was weird, and then we found out why when they started demanding that we show them where in the Bible it says that Sunday is the Sabbath Day. Apparently the day before they had some neighborhood friends over who just happened to be the 7th Day Adventists who filled them full of lies and false doctrine. Well we clearly and calmly explained to them that under the Apostolic Ministry the sabbath was changed to Sunday in honor of Christ's resurrection, for he was resurrected on the 1st day of the week. We told them that we know this through modern revelation that we get through modern prophets and there really isn't much convincing evidence in the bible that it was changed (there's like two rather vauge verses that mention breaking bread on the 1st day of the week and the saints collecting on the 1st day of the week, I've used them before when talking with the Adventists but they just don't work all that great). So even after we carefully explained all of this that we know this because we get our doctrine straight from God and not so much from the Bible, they still weren't very pleased, and they wanted us to leave them the scripture references so they could show them to these "friends" of theirs. We didn't, the last thing we want is our new members with their delicate new testimonies trying to bash with people from another church. They were so put out by this that they didn't want to go the Family History Center and enter in the information for Minerva's mother who she was planning to get baptized for. The youth and all of the recent converts of our ward are going to the Temple on Thursday to do baptisms for the dead and we want Minvera and Dianna's first experience to be very personal being baptized for their deceased family. It was quite frustrating and disheartening, luckily we managed to coax them into going on Wednesday to the Family History Center and do it. I just hope that they can still do it the day before, I'm not sure how the system works. We're really quite worried for them, but we figure if we can just get them to the Temple they'll have an epic experience there and that they'd never give in to the lies of their "friends". Man, the 7th Day Adventists are the worst, they're far worse than the J-Dubs, it's easy to prove with the Bible that Jehovah and Christ are the same person but there really just isn't too much proof in there that Sunday is now the sabbath day.
So we drove away feeling rather down, we went to the house to go eat and do studies, well as we got there we noticed this thug out in the street limping down the road toward our house. His neck and chest was drenched in blood, and we thought about pulling over and asking him if he was okay, well right in front of our house, or rather the Ayala's house with whom we live. There was a truck in the middle of the street blocking the road, we parked in our usual daytime parking spot on this patch of grass in front of our house but a little ways back, we were about to jump out and ask the guy if he was okay, when he stomped up the truck, yelling and screaming, this other guy came out of the neighbour's house with his 2 year old toddler in his arms, shaking his fist, yelling and screaming, and there were like three guys in the truck all yelling and screaming. Well they all converge on the truck and the guy who had come down the street rips one of the doors open and tries to get into the truck, while the guy inside, who we noticed had a hole in his head and just blood everywhere, started fighting him. They're all hispanics by the way. And then the guy with the kid jumps into this fight too and we were like: "Oh my gosh, at least put the kid down you idiot!" But no, he jumped right in there while his kid started crying. It was at this point that we decided that this probably wasn't the best place to be at the moment. Now we have this rule that when you're backing up your companion has to be out of the car and making sure you don't run into anything. We decided to disobey that rule, and I started backing out but I stopped when I realied that we were starting to back into the deep ditch on the side of the road behind our patch of grass (every road in Texas has a deep ditch on either side). So our only escape was forward and there was a truck with this brawl going on in the way. So we sat there and watched for a minute, the other neighbors were already outside on the phone with the cops so we just watched. There's something just very disturbing and unsettling about watching human beings trying to tear each other to pieces, and the poor kid just terrified out of his poor little brain right in the middle of it all. Well the guys inside the car succeeded in ejecting the thug with the blood all over his chest out of the car, and they close the door and started to drive away, but he jumped into the bed of the truck and we watched them drive off while he tried to bust in the windows with his fist, they started swerving all over the road trying to throw him off. They turned a corner and went out of site, while the guy with the kid just walked after them shaking his fist and screaming some more. We decided that we probably ought to leave and go visit some people or something and come back for lunch and studies later. We drove away and when we came back a half our later the cops were just all over the place, search helicopter flying low and circling the area, when we turned onto the road like 6 police cars just booked it out of there sirens going and everything, spreading out and looking for them. Now with the street completely deserted except for us and a few groups of inquisitive neighbors - we decided to parked and go in. During our studies some of the cops came back and pulled up in front of our house and started talking to the neighbors, Elder Green suggested that it was our 'civic duty to report what we had witnessed' and that we go out and talk to the cops. I frankly disagreed and told him it was best that we don't get involved, he protested but I made him stay in the apartment.
The rest of the day was a rather fruitless, nobody was home, or rather, wouldn't open their doors when we knocked on them. But it ended well, we got two new investigators from Guatemala who remembered being taught by missionaries many years ago in their country, and we stopped by a less active family who just happened to be having a big carne asada so we finished the night by stuffing ourselves with fajita. So not a bad end to the week I guess.
Well that's all, I hope you all have a good week and... yeah. Peace out
-- Elder Rice
Gangosos
February 7, 2011
Hello fam...
Well this week's e-mail ought to be slightly longer and more interesting than last week's. First of all it was stinking cold all of last week. Like brutally cold, the average was 30 throughout most of the week. We had heard from the people that it was supposed to snow on Friday, they were pretty freaked out, all the schools planned to close down that day and nobody was going to work, all of the businesses were to shut down, you'd think the plague or something was on it's way. We didn't think it was going to happen. Well come Friday and sure enough it didn't snow. It was really cold though. And it actually helped us out a lot. It was so cold that nobody wanted to leave their homes so it was really easy for us to finally catch people at home. Few if any people were outside, driving or whatever, it was like a ghost town, absolutely still and frozen outside. We were the only people out their driving around.
On Tuesday Hna. Hernandez taught us how to make gorditas and pupusas. As you can see in the pictures, it's really easy actually. A gordita is basically the same thing as a pupusa except that after you cook it, you slice it open and insert whatever you want. A pupusa you seal up whatever you want in it before you cook it. That's only difference, oh and pupusas are fried in grease, whereas with gorditas you can chose to dry cook it in a pan or cook it in oil, either way it was way easy. Or so I thought.
A couple days later I attempted to make a monster pupusa at our apartment. We already had all of the necessary ingredients, I had planned to make a huge pupusa with beans, onion, and cheese in it. Well my first mistake was to put too much beans in it, so that it all wouldn't fit inside the dough, there wasn't enough to wrap around all of the beans and stuff. So I thought I just make more and build around it, like an igloo. So I made more dough and made this mountain of dough and beans and dropped it in the pan. It weighed like 2 pounds. I wasn't going to cook it in oil or grease or anything but even so the abomination was too huge to be maneuvered effectively and the beans and stuff would start to ooze out of the cracks forming in the crust of my tectonic nightmare. After flipping it over a couple times it started to break apart, thus forming new continents, the whole experience reminded me of the super continent of Pangea that was around several millions of years ago and how it started to break up and drift thus forming the continents as we know them today.
Well my monster pupusa under went a similar experience, and the dough was so thick still that the outer crust was blackening while the inner just barely warm. I gave up and dumped the abomination in the trash. I decided to try again but making smaller ones, and I was out of beans so I made two normal sized ham and cheese pupusas. And they were pretty good. I'm definitely going to be making more such creations this week. And tomorrow Hna. Hernandez is going to teach us how to make sopes.
Well... Moving on to the next notable madness of the week. I got a letter from Dad on Saturday describing the great ineffectiveness of a ward he was in on his mission. It's really funny, because it foreshadowed the events of the following day. Sunday was to be Stake Conference, but it was some kind of regional type conference where it was to be broadcasted to us from Salt Lake. We alerted all of our investigators and made intensive plans to get everyone to church at the right time. Well come sunday and we show up to the church an hour or so before it's to start. We get there and the bishop and his wife were right there in a the door and basically said: "Oh elders thank goodness you're here, do you know how to set the machines up?" Well... To their credit they did find the projector. Well the next couple hours demonstrated..well I won't go there..
For some reason they couldn't receive anything through the satellite receiver, they couldn't get any signal at all out if it. And in the best priesthood leadership fashion they were pushing random buttons, flipping switches, plugging and unplugging things and whatnot. All of this about a half-hour before the broadcast was to start. One elder who had been in this ward for the last general conference said this was exactly what happened last conference. They didn't think about it till an hour beforehand and they started randomly messing with things until they gave up and let the missionaries mess with it until it started. They said that last year they didn't get it working until a half-hour into the first session, and they didn't get it in spanish until the 2nd session.
One elder in our district, Elder White, before his mission worked for a few years selling and installing cable systems and satellite dishes, and he was the one who had got it to work for the previous conference. So just picture about 20 or so men in suits in the gym crowded around a tiny door that lead into the room with the satellite box watching two bishops randomly push buttons for an hour. I stood in the back with Elder White (they wouldn't let him look at it just yet). And he was saying all they needed to do was let it reboot. It's exactly what happened last conference, you just had to turn it on and let it sit for a few minutes. But they wouldn't wait, they wanted it working right then.
So we're standing there and this crazy old white guy, I think he is the elder's quorum president, in the english ward kept suggesting we give the box a priesthood blessing. Everyone ignored him, then he started pestering us, the missionaries, to give the box a blessing, we kind of ignored him, and then told him that we can't give inanimate objects blessings and that maybe we could say a prayer or something.
While He was arguing with some of the elders about that, my companion heroically fixed an outlet in the primary room. We had wheeled a TV into the primary room for people to watch, when my companion noticed that the telephone outlet was askew and the actual line could not be reached really easy. Now one thing about Elder Green is that he can't sit still, he has to always be doing something, and not just like keeping himself entertained, he has to always being doing something to "fix" the situation and show everyone how intelligent and useful he is. So he daringly spent twenty minutes taking apart this outlet with his keys and putting it all back together again, making a big of it and how useful he is to everyone.... Yeah...
Well during this I was talking to some of the elders of the spanish ward who had been there for a really long time and had said that by now they had learned NOT to invite investigators to general conference or anything that had to be broadcasted to the chapel. Which seemed like a good idea, We had three investigators there, and they along with everyone else was sitting around wondering what was going on. The conference was being broadcasted to the stake center several miles north, the stake center next to the mission office. Towards the end the white people in the english ward started complaining loudly, that they had been told to come here and not to the other building, and they started making a big scene and lots more wonderful things... Somebody called somebody high up and supposedly, Salt Lake told them that the "line was fried". Elder White finally got a chance to look at it and it indeed appeared that the line was fried or something because he couldn't get it to work.
So to make a long and sad story short they recorded the broadcast at the stake center and said that they would show it at 1:00 and we would all have to drive up to the stake center for it. Well our investigators weren't too happy about that, and even after we got rides for them, and gave them directions and offered to guide them there and everything not a single one of them showed up to it....
It was a good conference though. President Monson and Elder Ballard spoke. It was great, we were pretty bummed that none of our investigators came. This all could have been avoided had they decided make sure everything worked the night before or something. But that kind of foresight would be asking a little too much now wouldn't it? XD
So that's how the week was. Lots of madness and cold, and it's all just very funny... It's all so ridiculous that I just laugh at it all now. Elder Green was rather upset and frustrated at all of this but I've learned just to laugh it off and don't worry about such things. Sure it was disappointing that our investigators missed out on hearing the prophet speak but whatever... There's nothing we can do about it except laugh.... Okay. I'm done, other pictures include this crazy car we saw in someone's driveway, my new nametag, and some Chihuahua puppies that were so cold that this family made little sweaters for them and hammocks for them out of their hats. So that's all I have to say, yesterday it was 70 degrees so it was back to short sleeves. I love you all and hope you have a great time... peace...
-- Elder Arroz
Dioquis
January 31, 2011
Hello Family.
This week was alright, things have been starting to pick up after the post-baptismal slump we had last week. Also the weather is getting a lot better so more people are inclined to open their doors or be out in the street. Well we're kind of short on time today so this will be brief.
Pretty much all to report is that Dianna is doing fine, she's out of that mental hospital and she carries on as if nothing ever happened. She and her mom came to church on sunday, they also got their own ride to church. And they're very involved and busy with activities in the RS and YW. It was wonderful to see them involved and enjoying life in the church without us having to baby them every step of the way. It really makes one happy to have taught and baptized such people.
And... yeah, that's basically all that's happened. It's just the same old stuff, week after week. The monotony gets to me often but whatever, there's not much I can do about it.
The pictures are of graffiti and some of the other things you may find in the city. Man, I'm trying to think of something amusing to write about but I don't think I have any, or the effort to write them. Oh, good job Aidan on the science fair.
Oh so I got your e-mail mom, as well as a notification from BYU that I've been readmitted, I went ahead and filled a scholarship application, the mid -grade one. The next level up asks for parents income and all this other crazy information that I don't have access to at the moment, and its just pretty much for those with financial needs so I didn't bother with it.
Well that's everything, I hope you all have a week that's not nearly as boring as mine and... yeah. PeaCe
-- Elder Rice
Mostasa
January 24, 2010
What up fam....
Well, again not too much to say this week. I did get the photos, thank you mom, wow, all of you look way older. I had to double check that this one picture of Austin was actually Austin and not someone else. And as far as the matieral that the molcajete is made from I don't know, I assume some kind of volcanic rock, and... yeah...
Well this week was rather dull except for the fact that our one favorite teenage recent convert who always has so much drama surrounding her is now in a mental hospital. Yup... Friday night the ward had a meeting or activity with the youth and their parents and it was about chastity. Apparently Dianna found out about all the stuff the other young women had saying about her a few weeks previous, and that combined some other factors resulted in some sort of mental meltdown during this activity and the bishop took her and her mom to the Houston mental hospital at 2 AM, she's getting our tommorow morning so hopefully we'll be able to see her and see how she's doing. We found out on saturday when we dropped by and just found her mother there and she told us all about it. Luckily she and her adult sons that live close by all assume that it was because Dianna's father spoiled her as a child and that's why she's unstable. I don't know if I'd agree with that but at least they don't blame the chruch. We were intensely worried that they'd think it was a result of joining the mormon church. Poor girl, her mom was saying that she's kind of caught between her non-member friends which, reportedly, are a bunch of scumbags, and her mormon friends who stabbed her in the back, but who she's now friends with again, though perhaps not anymore. That combined with this new mormon lifestyle seems to have fried her poor little 15 year old brain. Poor thing, luckily the ward doesn't know about it. Only the bishop and his wife. We've been praying for her quite a bit and tommorow we'll stop by and see how she's doing. Drama, drama, drama, I'm tired of drama. No more drama please.
I really have been getting tired things like this lately. Missionary work is very depressing in few facets. Everyday we visit families that are being spiritually destroyed right in front of our eyes, and we do our best, most often with marginal results, and it's just down right sad. It really is a war, and just like those stories of soilders who go insane after months and months of seeing their fellow human beings hewn down. It's depressing but the few times that we really do help someone, be it through baptism or re-activation, it makes up for all the horror we have to put up. That I'm learning rather keenly from these situations how NOT to run my family, and how NOT to live my life. I've learned that if I make the same mistakes as these people I'll end up like them in their horrible situations.
Hmm... I'm trying to think or something to end this e-mail on a slightly happier note. Oh so we have a new missionary in our district, fresh from the MTC, Elder Padilla, he's from Peru. He's been living in Pleasent Grove for the last 5 years and yet his english is non-existant. Much to the amusement of us, also he has a hard time understanding the people here just like we do, since most everyone here is Mexican or Central American, very different from Preuvian spanish. I've been having him teach me Peruvian slang, though I don't know when I'll use it, I've met a total of two Peruvians my whole mission.
Well that's all for today. I love you all and hope you have a good week. Peace out.
--- Elder Rice
What up fam....
Well, again not too much to say this week. I did get the photos, thank you mom, wow, all of you look way older. I had to double check that this one picture of Austin was actually Austin and not someone else. And as far as the matieral that the molcajete is made from I don't know, I assume some kind of volcanic rock, and... yeah...
Well this week was rather dull except for the fact that our one favorite teenage recent convert who always has so much drama surrounding her is now in a mental hospital. Yup... Friday night the ward had a meeting or activity with the youth and their parents and it was about chastity. Apparently Dianna found out about all the stuff the other young women had saying about her a few weeks previous, and that combined some other factors resulted in some sort of mental meltdown during this activity and the bishop took her and her mom to the Houston mental hospital at 2 AM, she's getting our tommorow morning so hopefully we'll be able to see her and see how she's doing. We found out on saturday when we dropped by and just found her mother there and she told us all about it. Luckily she and her adult sons that live close by all assume that it was because Dianna's father spoiled her as a child and that's why she's unstable. I don't know if I'd agree with that but at least they don't blame the chruch. We were intensely worried that they'd think it was a result of joining the mormon church. Poor girl, her mom was saying that she's kind of caught between her non-member friends which, reportedly, are a bunch of scumbags, and her mormon friends who stabbed her in the back, but who she's now friends with again, though perhaps not anymore. That combined with this new mormon lifestyle seems to have fried her poor little 15 year old brain. Poor thing, luckily the ward doesn't know about it. Only the bishop and his wife. We've been praying for her quite a bit and tommorow we'll stop by and see how she's doing. Drama, drama, drama, I'm tired of drama. No more drama please.
I really have been getting tired things like this lately. Missionary work is very depressing in few facets. Everyday we visit families that are being spiritually destroyed right in front of our eyes, and we do our best, most often with marginal results, and it's just down right sad. It really is a war, and just like those stories of soilders who go insane after months and months of seeing their fellow human beings hewn down. It's depressing but the few times that we really do help someone, be it through baptism or re-activation, it makes up for all the horror we have to put up. That I'm learning rather keenly from these situations how NOT to run my family, and how NOT to live my life. I've learned that if I make the same mistakes as these people I'll end up like them in their horrible situations.
Hmm... I'm trying to think or something to end this e-mail on a slightly happier note. Oh so we have a new missionary in our district, fresh from the MTC, Elder Padilla, he's from Peru. He's been living in Pleasent Grove for the last 5 years and yet his english is non-existant. Much to the amusement of us, also he has a hard time understanding the people here just like we do, since most everyone here is Mexican or Central American, very different from Preuvian spanish. I've been having him teach me Peruvian slang, though I don't know when I'll use it, I've met a total of two Peruvians my whole mission.
Well that's all for today. I love you all and hope you have a good week. Peace out.
--- Elder Rice
Cachorro
January 18, 2011
Hello Family.
Well looks like we got a few things to go through here. Firstly concering registration we are allowed to go onto the BYU site and get most of that figured out ourselves. Everything short of actually registering for classes because if I recall correctly I had to get up at like 2 AM to actually register for the classes when the time came. We can't do that obviously but we can look up stuff on P-Days so I can do that. But I think it'd be better if on the home front you found all the info as in when I need to be registered and whatnot. In fact just right now I went and logged onto it and put my new e-mail address as this one and did all that. So I can more or less keep up with it, but it'd be better off being informed from the home end.
Okay... Well things are going well. As you can see from the pictures our two investigators, named Minerva and Dianna were baptized. They're doing well, yesterday we had their first FHE with them as recent converts in the home of a member family. And we were quite suprised, the wife of this family is one of the YW's leaders and we showed up and found about half of the YW there with Dianna and they were all chatting and being happy. So they're all friends again. Much to our relief, I was seriously worried that they'd go inactive quickly because of this rift but everything seems fine now. I guess the YW's leaders did their stuff and everyone is happy and friends again. Thank goodness.
Other than that not much else of interest has occured of late. No real fiascos to report, just the usual daily grind of missionary work. The weather has been cray here, the week after Christmas it was in the 70's, the following week the 30's and 40's, and this week it's evened up but accompanied by constant rain.
And.... Um... I really can't think of much else to write, I think there was something slightly amusing but I forgot what it was and we're on a tight schedule today being a tuesday. I think I've never realized before my mission just how many stupid fake holidays are on mondays. I hate it now but I will be grateful for three day weekends in the future. But when you don't have weekends it kind of makes everything difficult.
Okay that's everything, I love you all and hope you have a good week. PEaCe
-- Elder Rice
Fallará La Juvented de Sión?.... Si
January 10, 2011
Hello Family.
How's it going? I don't why I always put rhetorical questions that you all can't immediately answer at the start of my e-mails. Anywho.... This week was full of interesting things that happened.
But first I'll start with the pictures that I forgot to post last week. There's our recent converts that were baptized on the 1st. Marta Arevalo and David Reyes. Marta is this old, old lady from Guatemala who was passed off to us from the other elders when she moved into our area. She was probably one of the easiest people to teach and baptize ever. Usually I hate teaching old people, it's very frustrating and pointless but Marta is pretty sharp and she was instantly ready to do anything we told her to. Upon teaching the word of wisdom we challenged her to live it and she said: "Well I drink coffee but now I won't anymore." It was as easy as that, she was willing to give up anything to be baptized. I wish we could find more people like that. The other people in the picture are David, who's 10, he a sharp kid, his mother Juani, is on the left holding the Book of Mormon, she was a less active member who is now getting back in the game. The girl next to David is his best friend, Abigail, she's also 10 and she would have been baptized too, but her family wants nothing to do with us. She usually hangs out at Davids house and we've been teaching them there, she's only 10 and since we gave her a book of mormon she's already read up to Alma. We're hoping her family will open up one day. The smallest Child is David's sister Dora. We always call her 'Dora the Explorer'. Oh and that annoying looking guy next to me is my companion Elder Green. The other pictures are of some sweet graffiti and a Chihuaua that has the same fur color as our dog and the same 'give me your phud' look.
Okay, now for the FIASCO OF THE WEEK. Again it happened on Sunday in church. Funny how so many things can go wrong at church and always do. We had 3 investigators who were to be given baptismal interviews. One of them, this man who was also being taught by the other elders and moved into our area. Has some serious issues and was to be interviewed by President Cue. When an investigator has serious issues they have to be interviewed by the mission president. And President Hansen doesn't speak spanish but luckily one of his counselors does. So he was having that interview. Our other two investigators, a mother and her 15 year old daughter were to be interviewed by our district leader. Now the girl is pretty amazing, both of them have been taught a while before I came to the area and they're weren't really going anywhere. But since we got the girl to go to mutual one day it's been a breeze. She's really social and made instant friends with all of the youth in the ward. She surprised everyone and all of the YW's leaders thought she was a member from a different ward. So they were going good until sunday when the Bishop tells us that he wants to interview this girl. And we tell him, that he can't do that, non-members are to be interviewed by the mission not by the ward. He then told us that he heard some things from the youth and, oh man, what confusion and unnecessary madness came of this.
So to make a long story short, the youth were preparing to go on a Temple trip to do baptisms and during these interviews (reportedly) some of the youth told the bishop that this girl (our investigator) had bi-sexual tendencies. Which got him in a fit, so he wanted to interview the girl. (Why in the world would the youth be talking about someone else during their own interviews?) Now we had gone over the baptismal interview questions with our investigators before so they knew what would be coming and as far as we knew this girl was just fine. She had just dumped her boyfriend who was almost twice her age to be baptized. After I and some of the other elders haggled with the Bishop we struck a deal with him, President Cue, after he had finished with our other investigator would interview this girl. So he did and it was a rather long interview but Cue said she was good to get baptized this saturday.
We were rather exhausted during this whole ordeal. We never sat for more than 10 minutes in any of the 3 hour bloc meetings. We constantly jumping in and out of the hall way making phone calls tracking down people in the building and all of this nonsense. All of this and we had 3 additional investigators at church that day who we had to keep an eye on as well. Never-the-less w
e eventually pieced together the picture of what happened. We noticed that young women whom our investigator had become friends with, were avoiding her and wouldn't make eye contact or anything. Our hypothesis is that many of the young women in the ward got jealous of this non-member girl (she was, and still is stealing all of the young men away from them, you will all see why next week when I send pictures of her upcoming baptism on saturday). So to try and ruin her they started these rumors about her being bi-sexual and even went the extra mile of telling the bishop about it during their own interviews with them, and thus this whole mess gets thrown into our hands. (That's were all the messes of the ward usually end up). But she passed her interview and she and her mother are going to be baptized this saturday. We got home from church completely drained and I checked to see if I had any gray hairs, and my poor companion, still being new and not understanding too much spanish, didn't quite get what was going on during church and he was just flipping out the whole time until I filled him in afterwards. Now the remarkable thing about all of this, is that we went to visit this girl and her mom the night after and they were still happy and excited for baptism. I'm still quite surprised, after having her new best friends stab her in the back she still wants to be baptized and come to church. We were afraid that she'd never want anything to do with the church ever again. Heck I'd probably feel like that after something like this happened to me.
So I'm really mad at the stupid youth but also very amazed and humbled that this girl still wants to stick with it even after such intense opposition from the very people she's going to join. I'm really frustrated with the youth, they very nearly came close to ruining a couple of people's chances at salvation, and someones salvation is pretty serious. This is serious stuff, bunch of morons, the lot of them. For the rest of the day I kept singing a line from that one hymn 'True to the Faith' which goes something like: 'Will the Youth of Zion falter? something something something.... and then I'd substitute 'no' for 'YES'. The youth of zion spectacularly faltered yesterday. Epic fail. I always remember being in church and hearing that spreading rumors was bad but I never really understood the importance of it until I've been out in the mission and seen such destruction it can cause. I had heard this ward was very ineffective before I got transferred here but I'd never thought that some of them would be working actively against us. We only barely escaped from that destruction and they're still good to be baptized this saturday.
Okay I'm tired of typing now so I hope you all have a good week and.... Yeah. I love you all. Peace.
Hello Family.
How's it going? I don't why I always put rhetorical questions that you all can't immediately answer at the start of my e-mails. Anywho.... This week was full of interesting things that happened.
But first I'll start with the pictures that I forgot to post last week. There's our recent converts that were baptized on the 1st. Marta Arevalo and David Reyes. Marta is this old, old lady from Guatemala who was passed off to us from the other elders when she moved into our area. She was probably one of the easiest people to teach and baptize ever. Usually I hate teaching old people, it's very frustrating and pointless but Marta is pretty sharp and she was instantly ready to do anything we told her to. Upon teaching the word of wisdom we challenged her to live it and she said: "Well I drink coffee but now I won't anymore." It was as easy as that, she was willing to give up anything to be baptized. I wish we could find more people like that. The other people in the picture are David, who's 10, he a sharp kid, his mother Juani, is on the left holding the Book of Mormon, she was a less active member who is now getting back in the game. The girl next to David is his best friend, Abigail, she's also 10 and she would have been baptized too, but her family wants nothing to do with us. She usually hangs out at Davids house and we've been teaching them there, she's only 10 and since we gave her a book of mormon she's already read up to Alma. We're hoping her family will open up one day. The smallest Child is David's sister Dora. We always call her 'Dora the Explorer'. Oh and that annoying looking guy next to me is my companion Elder Green. The other pictures are of some sweet graffiti and a Chihuaua that has the same fur color as our dog and the same 'give me your phud' look.
Okay, now for the FIASCO OF THE WEEK. Again it happened on Sunday in church. Funny how so many things can go wrong at church and always do. We had 3 investigators who were to be given baptismal interviews. One of them, this man who was also being taught by the other elders and moved into our area. Has some serious issues and was to be interviewed by President Cue. When an investigator has serious issues they have to be interviewed by the mission president. And President Hansen doesn't speak spanish but luckily one of his counselors does. So he was having that interview. Our other two investigators, a mother and her 15 year old daughter were to be interviewed by our district leader. Now the girl is pretty amazing, both of them have been taught a while before I came to the area and they're weren't really going anywhere. But since we got the girl to go to mutual one day it's been a breeze. She's really social and made instant friends with all of the youth in the ward. She surprised everyone and all of the YW's leaders thought she was a member from a different ward. So they were going good until sunday when the Bishop tells us that he wants to interview this girl. And we tell him, that he can't do that, non-members are to be interviewed by the mission not by the ward. He then told us that he heard some things from the youth and, oh man, what confusion and unnecessary madness came of this.
So to make a long story short, the youth were preparing to go on a Temple trip to do baptisms and during these interviews (reportedly) some of the youth told the bishop that this girl (our investigator) had bi-sexual tendencies. Which got him in a fit, so he wanted to interview the girl. (Why in the world would the youth be talking about someone else during their own interviews?) Now we had gone over the baptismal interview questions with our investigators before so they knew what would be coming and as far as we knew this girl was just fine. She had just dumped her boyfriend who was almost twice her age to be baptized. After I and some of the other elders haggled with the Bishop we struck a deal with him, President Cue, after he had finished with our other investigator would interview this girl. So he did and it was a rather long interview but Cue said she was good to get baptized this saturday.
We were rather exhausted during this whole ordeal. We never sat for more than 10 minutes in any of the 3 hour bloc meetings. We constantly jumping in and out of the hall way making phone calls tracking down people in the building and all of this nonsense. All of this and we had 3 additional investigators at church that day who we had to keep an eye on as well. Never-the-less w
e eventually pieced together the picture of what happened. We noticed that young women whom our investigator had become friends with, were avoiding her and wouldn't make eye contact or anything. Our hypothesis is that many of the young women in the ward got jealous of this non-member girl (she was, and still is stealing all of the young men away from them, you will all see why next week when I send pictures of her upcoming baptism on saturday). So to try and ruin her they started these rumors about her being bi-sexual and even went the extra mile of telling the bishop about it during their own interviews with them, and thus this whole mess gets thrown into our hands. (That's were all the messes of the ward usually end up). But she passed her interview and she and her mother are going to be baptized this saturday. We got home from church completely drained and I checked to see if I had any gray hairs, and my poor companion, still being new and not understanding too much spanish, didn't quite get what was going on during church and he was just flipping out the whole time until I filled him in afterwards. Now the remarkable thing about all of this, is that we went to visit this girl and her mom the night after and they were still happy and excited for baptism. I'm still quite surprised, after having her new best friends stab her in the back she still wants to be baptized and come to church. We were afraid that she'd never want anything to do with the church ever again. Heck I'd probably feel like that after something like this happened to me.
So I'm really mad at the stupid youth but also very amazed and humbled that this girl still wants to stick with it even after such intense opposition from the very people she's going to join. I'm really frustrated with the youth, they very nearly came close to ruining a couple of people's chances at salvation, and someones salvation is pretty serious. This is serious stuff, bunch of morons, the lot of them. For the rest of the day I kept singing a line from that one hymn 'True to the Faith' which goes something like: 'Will the Youth of Zion falter? something something something.... and then I'd substitute 'no' for 'YES'. The youth of zion spectacularly faltered yesterday. Epic fail. I always remember being in church and hearing that spreading rumors was bad but I never really understood the importance of it until I've been out in the mission and seen such destruction it can cause. I had heard this ward was very ineffective before I got transferred here but I'd never thought that some of them would be working actively against us. We only barely escaped from that destruction and they're still good to be baptized this saturday.
Okay I'm tired of typing now so I hope you all have a good week and.... Yeah. I love you all. Peace.
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