I am grateful for air
conditioning. I'll leave it at that.
Good afternoon friends
and family! It's me again. Checking in from a very soupy Baradero. My poor
companion is sweating PROFUSELY. Always. But we are enjoying working together.
Elder Tolentino cracks me up, we are laughing a whole bunch.
This week was kind of
strange because we did multidivisiones as a zone (multi-exchanges.) I stayed in
my area and helped my friend Elder Dote from Chile get to know Baradero. But
here's the kicker: we only worked from 5-9 (I sincerely hope that Dolly Pardon
just sang that in your head) because..¡SORPRESA! Buses come to our area only
once in a blue moon. But it was fun while it lasted. And the Next day we had to
go back to Zárate to finish the exchanges, and once again we got back to
Baradero just to work the late afternoon. And then the next day was Weekly
planning, o sea, three more hours in the apartment. But what we could do Friday and Saturday we
did, and we eagerly waited for Sunday because we had quite a few
investigators that had told us that they would be going to Church.
And then Sunday came,
and as usual, we were met with a curve ball. The member that was going to help
us look for a family of investigators in his car slept in, making it pretty
much impossible for us to look. Our progressing investigator didn't come, and
another investigator with lots of potential didn't either. So I was sitting in
the church at peace with my efforts, because I knew I had done all that I
could, but just the tiiiiiiniest bit grumpy. Luckily one investigator came and
stayed for all the meetings. Still a bit grumpy after lunch we began to work,
which included visiting many of the people that were going to come but hadn’t. As we began to visit these people, I began to
feel a little bit more empathy. One investigator had made it to the door of the
church but got cold feet at the last minute and didn't enter. Another didn't go
because he needed to solve a problem that had occurred with another person. One
family didn't go because their phones were on silent and didn't hear the alarm,
but hadn't smoked the whole day, Which was big, big news! I've learned that we
are all imperfect. We make mistakes. Meeting with these investigators after
helped me understand their situation and know what they need to learn and do so
that we can help them change to become more fully devoted followers of
Christ.
Also, today is
February 20. O sea, Today two years ago I opened up my mission papers, and
found out that I was called to serve in the Argentina Buenos Aires North
Mission. If you stalk my Facebook, surely you will find video footage recording
the grand event. I can honestly say I had no idea what I was getting myself
into. ¡SORPRESA! Without a doubt this has been the hardest thing that I have
ever done in my life. But I am so grateful for all the growth this experience
has given me. I now more fully understand who I am as a human being and as a
child of God, and how the Gospel of Jesus Christ helps me become more than I
could be on my own. I know how the Gospel needs to be lived and how it can be
applied in my life to yield wonderful results. I love being a missionary!
And that is all for
this week! I hope you all have a great day and I'll see you all soon enough. =)
Elder Hardcastle =)
No comments:
Post a Comment