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| Elder Colvin vs. Tejuino |
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| My experience with tejuino. It tastes like liquid tortilla but not good at all |
Well as far p-days go it was a pretty good day, but I don’t know anything. We went with the Florez family to the port area of Manzanillo where the gringos flock to. We went to this place where this guy has been feeding iguana for years and they just gather all around him. They are huge and normally walk all around him, but today they stayed up in the trees because it was rainy. We got these pig stomach and intestine tacos and the meat tasted exactly like you would imagine they would based on their smell, which is to say, very bad. Other than that “experience”, it was cool.
I got a haircut today and survived that, and of course the highlight of the day was emailing home. Unfortunately, fewer and fewer of my friends are emailing. Soon it will be just family and even then, Garrison and Levi never email me! What’s up bros?
October 11, 2016
Weird day. It is the 4th day in a row without companionship study due to meetings and other stuff. We are feeling the effects in the quality of our lessons. None of the lessons went well today and some of them didn’t happen at all. We did have a family home evening with the Ramirez family and that was a great experience. We had another investigator who will not read the assignments we give him, so we ended up just reading the scriptures with him. Other than that, we spent a lot of time walking around pointlessly. I tried really hard to speak mostly Spanish today and that helped me to feel more productive. Tomorrow I am dedicated to using my time better and being more productive.
October 12, 2016
What a hard day! It has never been so hard for me to speak Spanish as it was today. Why is it so hard to conjugate???? And the wort part is how similar somethings are in Spanish to English and yet so very different the grammar rules are. It doesn’t help that I was also just super tired today. I have discovered that when I get completely full in the mid day meal, it just wipes me out. I can’t stay awake! But if I am just a little bit hungry, I can stake awake and focus. So I need to figure out a way to purposefully starve myself just a little all day long. I am learning very quickly how amazing the members of Manzanillo are. There is always a member who is willing to come and teach with us. They share everything they have with us not matter how humble their circumstances are. I am finally starting to feel a deep love and respect for them. Our lesson with A. was awesome. Literally the only thing holding him back from being baptized is needing to complete all the lessons. The guy is amazing and has so many people who he wants to introduce the gospel to. He lives with lots of people in a place where life is humble but full of a great spiritual readiness. These are people who are ready and willing to change to improve their circumstances.
At the end of a long hard day of being a missionary, it is easy to feel discouraged. But I try to focus on the joy that comes from seeing the gospel change a few people and it is all worth it. This is the work of Christ.
October 13, 2016
Well today was interesting. We got very lost on our way to comida (dinner). We knew that we were supposed to eat with a certain family, but we didn’t know exactly where they lived. So we took the wrong bus and were very late by the time we figured it out. We met with the ward mission leader today and did some service for a member. The service was literally cutting up sheets of plastic into smaller pieces. This family takes trash and sells it to recycling companies so their house is actually covered in trash. After the service, we went tot he very edge of our area to talk to someone who we thought was going to be a promising contact. It turned out that they gave us a fake dress and phone number so that was a huge waste of time and energy. Pero, esta bien. Just got to keep working. We did have a really good lesson afterwards with a man who has previously taken all the discussions. His wife was opposed to him being baptized so he never progressed. But, his wife passed away a couple of years ago so he is really receptive to our message of the Plan of Salvation. We have another investigator who is also not reading, but is really interested and wants to continue to learn. So that was our day today. Tomorrow we are going on divisions with our Zone Leaders and I don’t even know our area yet. That should be interesting.
October 14, 2016
Divisions were weird. I somehow managed to find my way around the whole day except for getting lost one time. We didn’t meet up with the ZLs until after comida which was so dang good!! Spaghetti and shrimp with octopus and mushrooms and a delicious sauce. It was the best seafood dish that I have ever eaten! Also, everyone here, well almost everyone, makes horchata. Delicious, amazing, horchata…seriously it is better here than any horchata I have had in the states! I was definitely called to serve in the right place!
Back to divisions, basically all of my plans and back up plans fell through and I don’t really know the area of very many of the members. So, i had to use pretty much every person I knew in the barrio. We actually ended up teaching 2 lessons and we did a bunch of contacts. It was weird because I had to take the lead in talking to people and in the lessons because the ZL didn’t know anyone. Then there is the issue of my Spanish abilities. I got through the day though. The lessons were much better than I thought I could teach. The one time that I got lost was when I went the complete opposite direction that I should have gone right after finishing a great lesson. Luckily, Elder Long was with a member with a car so they found us and rescued us. We ordered Mexican pizza for dinner and it was not good. they put a weirdly sweet version of catsup on it for a sauce and it was just very strange. But oh the tacos here are so much better than in the states! Oh and the donuts are surprisingly a million times better.
October 15, 2016
Well I am straight up exhausted. It wasn’t even that hot of a day here, but I was sweating more than usual. It actually rained pretty hard which caused small rivers in the streets. The rain helped to lower the temperature in the afternoon and by evening it was actually cool. We went to the port today to get a table and blender for the sister missionaries. That chewed up a big chunk of the day. We still taught a few lessons. We found out that one of our best investigators is moving out of our area. I am really extra tired tonight, probably because I got a call at 10 PM from the branch president asking me to talk in Sacrament meeting tomorrow. So excited, totally ready. I don’t need to write anything down…or have massive help with translation.
October 16, 2016
Well my talk went really well actually, but I am so tired because I stayed up late working on it. I am so glad that tomorrow is p-day. Today was a slow day for the work. Sundays are weird for me because it is the one day of the week when I really can NOT understand what people are saying. I hate having to rely on my companion to answer questions. I don’t know, I am just tired. But it is all good. Everything is going well with the work even though we are losing people. We have had more rain today and the thunderstorms here are pretty insane. Lighting strikes all around us all of the time. It’s pretty cool.
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| My first planner cover |
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