I’m not sure if this was a good or bad week for us…
Well, this week has made me lose more hair than any of the other weeks of my mission up to this point. First, I got my first Trunky Paper: I had to send the offices all of my personal information so they could get my flight ready! In the next few weeks I’ll start getting other papers and in four months I’ll be home! That’s a little too close for comfrot, but I’m not freaking out yet because it doesn’t seem real… I suppose it won’t ever seem to be until I actually get back. It’s like when I started the mission: It didn’t seem real and it wasn’t until I had three months in the mission that I actually realized, “What the heck?! I’m a missionary! When did that happen?!” It makes for a good laugh… Or maybe the maniacal laugh of an insane person… I’m not entirely sure yet.
Anyway, about this week…
It started with some crazy work visits (I’ve never done a work visit on a Sunday night nor have been in a trio for P-Day, but, well, there’s a first for everything!) and some interesting birthday activities. Elder Alder, one of my roomates from the CCM, turned 23 (I think; I’m not good with ages!) and we went to his area to find some ruins. They have a giant cement sign that says there’s an ancient temple here, so we hiked up the hill to see it. Here it is:
…Not really sure what happened to the temple…! I suppose if there actually was one here, the people made off with parts of it and now there are just a bunch of holes! Who knows — maybe we climbed the wrong hill! Either way, not much to see… So we decided to take a scenic tour alongside the Rio Chillon:
After the huaicos that we had a few months back, there´s not much water in the river and it was so powerful during them that it’s completely destroyed this cement wall that had made a little waterfall back when the river was full! The most interesting part of our expedition was walking in the middle and avoiding the little streams:
It was pretty fun, and we finished out hike eating Selva Negra cake!
…Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were not as great.
They were, like I mentioned before, some of the most stressful days of my mission. Tuesday we had a visit from one of the asistants and during their visit, the district meeting we had was awful. Everyone was just really quiet because it’s like any other day that some authority figure visits: No one wants to do anything because they’re scared they’ll get told off, but because of that, I got told off for not having a good district meeting! After that there was talk of dividing up the district into the other districts so that I wouldn’t be district leader… I don’t think the meeting was THAT bad, but I guess I did something majorly wrong… So that kept us all stressed because we LIKE being a district. We’ve all been together for six weeks now and we all get along and work together, and when they wanted to split us up we all got a little bummed. I’m still not sure what’s going on! I suppose I’ll find out if I’m still district leader tomorrow!
But what made this week totally worth all the hair loss and stress were the miracles that happened this week! I wrote it in Spanish again, so you’ll need to translate it, but it’s worth it because they were so cool!:
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Esta semana fue muy raro ¡pero tuvimos muchos milagros! Primero, hicimos un tour de la capilla y llegaron 4 investigadores. De ellos fueron uno que hace un día de repente se apareció en la capilla, ¡a quien enseñamos y pusimos una fecha bautismal en una lección tan perfecta que pareció una práctica! Una otra fue una investigadora que se había ofendido porque rechazamos el té que nos dio pero, gracias a un miembro, ¡llegó a entender por qué no tomamos té y fue con esta miembro y ahora nos está escuchando otra vez! (Otro milagro allí es que esta investigadora fue buscando en Internet un poco sobre los mormones pero, en lugar de encontrar publicaciones anti-mormonas como yo temía, ¡encontró artículos de entrevistas con misioneros!)
El siguiente milagro pasó el domingo. Después de este tour muy espiritual, estábamos seguros que irían ellos y algunos tres más que entonces tendrían fechas fijas, ¡dejándonos con 8 INCAs y 5 con fechas bautismales!… Pero sólo llegó uno. Por un momentito yo estaba un poco bajo, preguntando por qué — ahora sólo tendríamos 3 con fechas y sólo 3 que se podían bautizar este mes (para bautizarse, una persona debe ir por lo menos 3 veces). 3 personas bautizadas es obviamente algo muy bueno, pero nuestra meta es 4 y sé que esta meta es una meta inspirada por Dios — yo y mi compañero sentimos muy fuertemente que ésto es lo que podemos lograr — pero yo tenía fe que se puede lograr todavía… sólo no sabía cómo… ¡La respuesta vino aquella noche! Al hablar con nuestros líderes de zona, nos dijeron que un hombre — ¡de la nada! — asistió a la capilla durante su horario ¡y vive en nuestra área! Estoy tan agradecido que Nuestro Padre Celestial realmente está haciendo milagros acá y que Él nos ayuda a cumplir con las metas que hemos puesto con Su guía. Realmente está trabajando con nosotros en su viña y todo es posible con Su ayuda.
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[Jeff’s translation, courtesy of Google Translate]
This week was very hard, but we had many miracles! First, we gave a tour of the chapel and four investigators arrived. We taught one of them and committed him to a baptismal date in a lesson so perfect that it seemed like a practice lesson! Another was offended because we rejected the tea offered to us, but thanks to a member, she came to understand why we did not drink tea. She went with this member and now she is meeting with us again! (Another miracle is that she went on the internet looking for a little bit about Mormons but, instead of finding anti-Mormon publications as I feared, she found articles from interviews with missionaries!)
The next miracle happened on Sunday. After our very spiritual tour, we were sure that they would commit to baptism, giving us eight INCAs [investigators?] and five with baptismal dates! … But only one came. For a little while I felt a little low, asking why – now we would only have three with dates and only three that could be baptized this month (to be baptized, a person must attend church at least three times). Three baptized people is obviously a very good thing, but our goal is four and I know that this goal is a goal inspired by God. My companion and I feel very strongly that this is what we can achieve. I had faith that we could still achieve it … I just didn’t know how. The answer came that night! When talking to our area leaders, we were told that a man – out of nowhere! – attended the service and lives in our area! I am so grateful that Heavenly Father is truly working miracles here and that He helps us to fulfill the goals we have set with His guidance. He is really working with us in his vineyard and everything is possible with His help.
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For that, I amend my opening statement: This WAS a good week for us! I’m so incredibly grateful that I’ve finally learned how to do the mission work, and even though I’m far from being a “good” missionary, I know how to work, what to do, and I understand everything, even the setbacks and problems. This is one of the reasons why I want to extend my mission: I’ve finally figured out what I’m doing! (At least, until the next time God decides to send me another trial! That’ll change everything all over again!)
But yeah, it’s been great here! Just to show you how tired we are, here’s a picture of when my companion fell asleep with his shoes on!
I’ll send some more mission life updates next week. I haven’t done anything creative for a while… Maybe I’ll do my email in another format again!
¡Chao!
— Elder Schroeder