31 days left… (Written October 6, 2017… Finished October 15th) 🙁

TODAY I COMPLETED 24 MONTHS IN THE MISSION! I HAVE OFFICIALLY FINISHED!
No, not really… But that means that I have exactly 1 month left before I finish!

(I know that I’ve mentioned how much time I have left WAAAAAY too much… I’m not sure if it’s a coping tactic because I’m really stressed and scared, or if I’m in shock and that’s why I still can’t quite believe it… Whatever it is, it’s strange and I’m not sure I like it.)

…

I’M SORRY! I’VE BEEN DOING SO MUCH WORK LATELY THAT I HAVEN’T HAD TIME TO WRITE, EVEN ON P-DAY! I DON’T HAVE TIME TO WRITE ANYTHING REALLY WELL-SAID OR “PRETTY” RIGHT NOW BECAUSE I WANT TO TELL YOU WHAT’S GOING ON, BUT FOR NOW I THINK I’LL JUST HAVE TO STICK WITH A SUMMARY OF THESE PAST FEW WEEKS. (IT’S EITHER THAT OR I DON’T WRITE UNTIL NEXT WEEK, SO…)

So, the latest news (apart from completing 24 months) since the last time I wrote:

First, cambios came around again and, on September 26th, I was busy all night and pretty much the entire next week coordinating, driving around, waiting, taking people to the airport, trying to teach Elder Hewitson how to be Secretario Personal, and solving problems that suddenly arised (LIKE THEY ALWAYS DO!). It was so crazy that it was funny! (And, thankfully, it really wasn’t all that stressful – maybe because I’ve adapted to my job, or maybe because I’m getting better at stress management… or maybe I was just too tired to think straight!) Here are a few of the problems:

– Elder Sánchez, the assistant, had a flight that they cancelled at the last minute. So they planned to send him in FIRST CLASS! What luck! Seems like the Lord was rewarding him for his dedicated service!… Until they informed me an hour later that even that wasn’t available, so the only other option was a flight that went to Panama and THEN to Colombia at 11:00 PM… Economy Class. He was kind of upset with me after that, but I didn’t even do anything! I just took the only option they gave me to get him home (And, honestly, I thought it was pretty funny!)

– Elder Parker also ended up with a few problems with his flight and ALSO ended up going to Panama! He ended up with FOUR flights instead of the three that were planned and ended up arriving much later because of that. His route ended up being: Peru -> Panama -> Texas -> Colorado -> Idaho.

Here we are with his four tickets:

It’s interesting to take my compañero from the CCM to the airport so he finishes while I still don’t… But what was even stranger was finding three of the other guys from our district in the CCM! Seriously, I ran into Elder Pierce, Elder Willard, and Elder Bishoff! Here’s half our CCM district (including Elder Parker and me):

In our area, we’ve seen a couple of really cool miracles, too:

1. Leonor, one of our converts, had some problems with one of her neighbors in the past that was still causing problems between them. We learned about this problem because her neighbor, who we are now currently teaching, mentioned that she still had an actual fear of being in her house because of all the insults that Leonor had given her before… But then mentioned that they had stopped about two months ago… which was when we first started teaching Leonor! (The Gospel really does change people!)

We mentioned this to Leonor and explained that she should ask her neighbor to forgive her so that they could remove the current hostility that they had. However, she wasn’t very willing because she didn’t feel that it was her problem since she had already forgiven her neighbor for the wrongs she had done and her response to our teaching wasn’t as positive as we would’ve liked. Personally, I didn’t have much hope that she would actually do it.

So Saturday comes around and we went to the first session of General Conference. While we were waiting outside the door to saludar (there isn’t an English word for that…) the members and investigators that were showing up, we saw Leonor arrive… And she had brought her neighbor with her! It turns out that the very next day after we taught Leonor, she had gone to her neighbor’s house and asked for forgiveness, and then Saturday she ran into her and guided her to the chapel to watch the Conference! (Just in case you haven’t figured it out, Leonor is awesome!)

2. Liz, one of our investigators, had a baptismal date for the 7th and we were worried because we hadn’t seen her for almost two weeks due to various problems that they had. But when we finally managed to visit her, we discovered that she was still really strong and dedicated and still wanted to be baptized very much. She’s so excited and converted that she cried when she told us about how the Gospel has helped her and her family. It’s taken her almost two months to prepare herself but she really has come to KNOW that the Gospel is true and has felt its influence in her life! It’s definitely been worth the wait!

(…Unfortunately she didn’t end up getting baptized… When she had an interview to prepare herself for baptism we found out that she and her husband actually weren’t married! They both had told us that they were, but they really aren’t… She can’t get baptized if she isn’t keeping the commandment to strengthen her family through marriage, so we’ll have to wait a little bit more… She was so disappointed that she stopped receiving us for a little bit, but we’re going to help her. It was just a huge letdown for her… And for us.)

3. Elder Castrejón, my companion, got up and got dressed before ANYONE ELSE!!! Normally he’s the LAST one! Ha ha!

Another few things of note:

1. For the last few days we’ve had Elder Farinango with us! For a couple of crazy changes he’s been with us now for two weeks!

It’s cool to be four missionaries instead of three because we can do twice the amount of work, but also because we celebrated his cumpleaños with Elder Primo!

(Papa John’s lets us buy two pizzas with the second one just a sol, so we opted for that instead of buying a cake!)

And then, because we could, we all decided had a massive sleepover one night!

Well, I’m not sure you could call it a sleepover if we all live in the same house… Really we just all slept in the same room… Either way, it was something different!

OK, I think I’m finally all caught up! Hopefully next week will go a little better and I’ll have more time! ¡Hasta entonces!

— Elder Schroeder