So this week has by far been the most stressful. We had so many appointments with people we couldn´t keep up with all of them. Even worse is that we wanted to set up appointments for investigators when they had free time, not when it was convinient for us. Because of that we walked way more and take way more busses than we should have. It really killed our time. BUT, we had a ton of success this week!
A lot of the stress was because we tried really hard to get the members of our ward to join us in as many lessons as possible. It´s really tough with some of them because if the investigator flakes out of his appointment then we have to try to reschedule and also try to get the member who agreed to come to change their time and AHHH.... it was nuts. I hope this week will be a bit less hectoc but with just as much success. We got our ward mission leader to come out with us a ton and he basically made our days! We had two lessons with the man who thinks he has a problem with his heart during the week. We started out good but I felt like we always left him on not such an extactic note that he needs to feel to get him to stop being depressed. So I was determined to get one more visit with him this week before Sunday with a member and make sure we end on a fantastic note. We couldn´t get in touch with his home or cell phone for nothing so we got our mission leader to come with us and hoped for the best that he would have time for us. I made a prayer in my head, ¨Please just let Cristian be there¨. We buzzed his apartment but no reply. Then a bit down I thought of a family we haven´t visited in a while who live in the same apartment complex. The family was of three daughters who were members and went to church (which is amazing because the oldest is 14), and their mother was gone and their father was struggling just to support his daughters. Miraculously we got to enter his apartment and even talk to him. We shared some lessons and found out several times he was going to be baptised but things always happened and he never was.
After a dynamite lesson he agreed to be baptised like his daughters were. We left super pumped. I wanted to try Cristian one more time and see if he was there. I made another prayer much stronger this time that if only he would be there this time. But no luck once again. HOWEVER, as we were walking away and about to depart from our mission leader. We spotted in the distance Cristian walking back towards us! Basically we walked straight to him and I just thrust my arms up with a huge small when he saw us! We got to teach him with his mom in his apartment and thanks to our Mission Leader (who we called Hermano Vera), Cristian was super happy when we left and loved the things we taught him.
Another success we had was with a family of members who had a son that wasn´t baptized. The son wants to be baptized and all his family does too. The only problem was the Dad didn´t like some of the processes of doing it so he refused to let his son get baptized until he felt it. The crazy thing is that he told us he wants his son baptized but only his own due time. So we tried showing him the importance and family unity it would bring. This man has maybe some psychotic problems that also influence his pride in not letting his son get baptized. The father never went to church because he hated the people asking him when was he going to baptize his son. He basically told us he knew exactly why we were there and what we were trying to do and he didn´t like it one bit. But we stuck to our desires to help his family as a whole by getting his son baptised and eventually he must have cracked because we set up the lessons his son needs every sunday just before church! And this sunday he came for the first time since I´ve been here with his family and listened in on the lesson! What a huge relief! Basically this was also only thanks to our ward mission leader.
Now for a funny story! Yeah! So we always call the members we have lunch with to verify our lunch appointments with them. So we called the family the morning we had them and the sister said we didn´t have lunch scheduled with her... I was dead certain it had her name on March 11 on the calender posted in the church... Well we basically got shafted and it was in the morning before we should leave our apartment but I was determined to get to the bottom of this... We had some problems with this family before in terms of drama. Sometimes they made gossip about us that wasn´t true because the previous missionaries spent way too much time with them and wasted a lot of time to work because of it. Because of that they grew really attached to the missionaries and are troubled why we don´t visit them as much as the others who weren´t being obedient. They don´t even live in our area... I was affraid at the possibility I was wrong and there was a different family on the calender than I had written. I didn´t want to not show up if we did have lunch with someone else. So we left to go to the church to look at the calender and get back as fast as possible. We had some bad feelings about doing it but we didn´t want to offend any of the church members by skipping out on their lunch for us on accident. Just as we left and were walking we get a call on our cell phone from the Assistants to the Mission President. Uh oh. Of course we had to answer it and we live in a city with tons of cars honking. My companion was answering the phone and we looked for a quiet place to listen so we found the first open building and walked into the lobby to talk over the phone in peace. Suddenly a lady from one of the offices came out to ask what we were doing and looked worried. I told her we couldn´t hear well outside and to excuse us and that we will leave as soon as he´s done on the phone. Then like five other older ladies surrounded us from the same office as if they were preparing for something bad to happen between us. I was a bit freaked out but they just watched us and my companion finished his call and we said ¨Excuse us and we left¨ Then as we left feeling scared we looked back and saw that the building we walked in was a Jewish Temple. OOPS. Well we kinda goofed there... I thought it was hilarious (personally) and my companion was a bit worried something bad might happen. I´m sure the lady saw our plaques that read in big white letters ¨The Church of Jesus Christ (well in spanish, LA IGLESIA DE JESUCRISTO¨).
ANYWAY...
We definitely had a lot of blessings this week with our work. I know that it´s due to the greater focus on obedience that my new companion brought with him! He´s the most humble and focused missionary I´ve ever seen. I hope I can follow his example and help him in things he wants to improve on. Thank you all so much for reading my blog and keeping up with my adventures! I love getting DearElders and hearing back from the exciting things that happen back in the States. I heard something about a tsunami hitting Japan and that it´s going to possibly hit Chile, Hawaii, California, etc...
Thanks for all your support!
Elder Trevor Jones
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