Hello everyone! Thanks so much for your letters! I love hearing how things are going at home with you all, and to hear that you're all doing so great! Goodness, I can't believe its FALL there. Actually leaves changing and everything! Its just one continuous summer here so its so strange to see the changing seasons, even if its just by pictures!
Okay, I'm going off my journal this week so we'll do a day-by-day update.
Monday: I was SO tired this morning (I'm always pretty dead come the end of the week haha) and my thoughts started escalating towards the next 11 months and I started to get REALLY tired. Then I drank a ton of zip fizz and felt much better :) I also read in the Liahona about when President Hinckley was called as prophet he went to the temple and cried because he felt so overwhelmed and then the verse came to mind "Be still and know that I am God" and he gained the strength to go forward, trusting the Lord to sustain him. And I'm only a missionary, not a prophet. He served for over 50 years. 11 months is nuthin' ;)
At Robinsons we met up with Sister Ludwig (Sister Becerras friend from home) and her companion Sister Camino for lunch. It's fun to be able to meet up with them and it makes me SO excited for when Jessica (Sister Judd) gets here!! Be so excited Jess, you're coming to the best mission in the world, super typhoons and all ;)
When we came home Sister Becerra and I climbed on our roof to watch the sunset. The sunsets here are one of the prettiest things I've ever seen. Strangely, Rexburg has pretty comparable sunsets? Haha so weird. But we just watched the sun go down, ate some papaya, then went out to work :)
Tuesday: Today was our mission presidents training (meaning there was probs a ton of "really attractive" pictures posted on his facebook. Please disregard them all. Also, he said that he puts boxes over pictures to cover things like hand gestures and immodesty? Have you seen that? hahahaha I was laughing so hard to imagine some poor elder with his hand boxed out for doing a hangloose or something). I spent the first half of the meeting stressing my brains out about weekly baptisms (as you've noticed, its been really tough the last three months to achieve that for me, more on that later) and feeling like a terrible missionary. Then I realized I needed to chill out, humble myself, and not take everything he was counseling us on as a personal attack haha (Sound like familiar advice mom? You always knew best ;) ). I honestly just went out for the break, so discouraged, then the scene from Devil Wears Prada popped into my head where Andy goes to complain and is like "I am doing everything I can! She just hates me! I can't do this D:" and Nigel goes "Oh poor you, poor Andy. A million girls would kill for this job and you're upset because she doesn't pat you on the head and give you a gold star on your homework. Wake up, six." and I laughed at myself and stopped my little pity-party and resolved to recognize I can ALWAYS do more and do better :) Gani ;)
Then, that was really put to the test as we had a co-habitation interview scheduled after the training for our baptism that saturday... and she didn't show up. We waited. And waited. And waited. And we even told her that it was 30 minutes earlier than it was so she wouldn't be late. And she never showed up. So after this meeting all about our mission vision we had to go tell President that she wasn't there. He was very kind and offered to reschedule. We went straight to her house to find out what was going on and there she is, just sitting outside the chungey. She said she didn't feel well and thats why she didn't go (obviously not really true). We spoke with her to figure out what her real reason was and she didn't volunteer anything but agreed to attend her interview the next day....
Wednesday: ... And then she didn't show up. Again. We went to her house at 1 and said "Hey! Your interview is today! We'll come back at 3 to go with you so don't go anywhere, okay?" She agrees and we head out to our other investigators. We come back at 3, house is all chained up. My heart SANK. We texted her, no answer. Called, no answer. We finally have to text President AGAIN and tell him that she won't be coming. Later that day we stop by again and there she is, sitting outside the chungey. Her excuse was that she didn't feel well again and went to the doctor. (once again, obviously not the real reason). So we asked her if she really wanted to be baptized this saturday and she didn't answer... my stomach tightening. Finally she says "next time na lang, sisters". And we had to walk away, no baptism. I was SO discouraged. We had been working SO hard with her, she was ready! She reads the BOM, she prays, she knows its true! She even has been practicing what she'll say in her testimony after her baptism! We couldn't figure it out. As we walked away I had the verse come to mind "Be still and know that I am God." and I decided to not let this affect my diligence or trust in her or our mission's vision, but to continue doing the best I knew to do and let the Lord work the rest out.
Thursday: Woke up at 6:15 to our fans turning off. Sister Becerra and I jump awake and just groaaannnn and start to sweat haha. We had sisters staying with us for their turn at the training today, so we awkwardly did our workout while they got ready, prayed with them, and started our very hot study session. I was so hot I could hardly concentrate, I just fanned myself with a plan of salvation pamphlet and tried to imagine being in a very cold tank of water. When we came back after our appointments that night, what we thought was a power out turned out to be false, seeing as how all our neighbors had power and only our house was dark. We figured the electric company mustve turned off our power since we couldn't pay our bill when the typhoon hit. So we planned by candle light and went to bed in a very sauna-like bedroom.
Friday: Went out to the electric place to pay our bill and get them to turn the power back on. They send out a crew after lunch to see what the problem is... and flip our main power switch from off to on -__- Turns out the sisters staying with us accidentally flipped it off while trying to turn on the water pressure. So we suffered through self-inflicted heat for 2 days. The joys of a mission haha ;)
We met with our investigator, Erlinda, and she told us that she spoke with her boss and will be able to have Sundays off starting in December!! And she wants to be baptized as soon as she can!! Oh man, Sister Becerra and I were so happy! We've been praying for her boss's heart to be softened so she could come to church for weeks. Everything happens in the Lord's time :) We also taught our investigator, Mario a 16 year old boy, the Law of Chastity. And it actually went great! He was super in agreement and accepting. And I made Sister Becerra teach all the awkward parts haha.
Saturday: We went to Mitchits to try and figure out what has been going on and why she all of a sudden lost her desire to be baptized. Turns out that she got talking with the members and they have seen lots of investigators be baptized and then fall out of activity so they all told her that she needed to be really sure and baptism isn't a joke and she can't just decide one day that she doesn't want to do it anymore. So she got freaked out and discouraged and didn't want to be baptized. First I was just so annoyed with the members! But then I knew they just meant well and didn't want any more less actives. So we started to talk with her and reassure her when she all of a sudden gets huge eyes and says "wait, I'll be right back." and leaves. We wait and she comes back a minute later and says "the owner of my house is here and he's in a bad mood, we need to be quiet." So we hesitantly continue and start to hear shouting from the next room over. She gets up again and rushes out and we sit there not quite sure what to do. She comes back a few minutes later and asks if we could please just come back later. Worried that we were upsetting her boss we got up to leave and as we walk out we see her 9 year old son, Nicco, sitting against the house outside silently crying. I asked Mitchit what happened while Sister Beccera crouches down to give him a lolipop from her bag. Mitchit tells me that the owner got upset that Nicco and his friends were playing in the house and hit him. HIT HIM. We walk out and I see this pig of a man sitting in a chair with his shirt off drinking a beer. I wanted SO BAD to pick up a rock and throw it as hard as I could at his ugly face. And his nasty wife goes over and starts yelling at little Nicco to stop crying. OH. I was MAD. I cursed him straight to... a place I shouldn't say. I looked at Mitchit and tried to let her know that it was gonna be okay without saying anything, knowing that would only make it worse, and promised to come back to check on them the next morning. OH MY GOSH. Sister Becerra and I just had to walk away and I wanted sooooo bad to do so many terrible things to that guy. UGH. We decided that after our missions we would come back and bring our strong and capable husbands who would go up to him, go all james bond on him to within an inch of his life, then tell him that if he ever touches Nicco or any of them again he'll wish he had never been born.
Probably not the way I should react as a missionary, but oh my gosh. So much disgust for that man.
Annddddd now I'm out of time to tell about Sunday. But it was a great day too. Even though this week was a little frustrating, I know that as I keep doing my best I can be confident that Heavenly Father is proud of me and my work. I love you all!! I hope you all have a great week, I wish I had more time to write each one of you, maybe sometime in my mission I'll figure out how to actually use this hour wisely haha :)
LOVE YOUUUUU
Sister Manwaring
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