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| The curse of the Colvin feet |
Last day of October! Normally it would be cold and I might even wear a long sleeve shirt, but it is as hot as always here. It’s almost been exactly one month in the actual mission field. Pretty normal cozy p-day. We didn’t teach any lessons though. One of our investigators is just living in crappy conditions with her father. She is older with kids of her own and is working but everyone she lives with are drunks and she is being abused. Pretty sad stuff. All we can do about it is pray, sadly.
November 1, 2016
I am so tired today and I have an ingrown toenail…the curse of the Colvin missionaries. I also have blisters from running in between appointments. So it had been lots of fun lately. One of our investigators dropped us today, but we did find someone new to teach. We asked a guy out in front of his house for directions and he just invited us in to talk. He seemed genuinely interested in reading the Book of Mormon but he has a problem with believing that God listens to our prays and loves us/everyone.
Tomorrow we have to be in the house by 6:00 PM because we are heading to Guadalajara AGAIN early the next day for a newbie training meeting on Thursday.
Bus travel is so painful…and then we get to spend the night with other missionaries in Guadalajara.
November 2, 2016
Bus rides and divisions. Elders in Guadalajara love to play games in the evenings after work. Tonight it was and UNO tournament with pizza so that was fun. But, sleeping on the floor was NOT fun. It was super cold and very hard to sleep.
November 3, 2016
Today is my official one month mark. We had a super fun training day today. You can feel the love that the President and his wife have for each missionary. It was great to reunite with all the newbies from my generation. But, my Spanish es chafa. I learned a ton and ate great food. I even came super close to winning a scripture reference game thing, but my companion beat me so that was at least a half victory. A bunch of the training elders are getting ready to go home so that will probably be the last time that I see them. Here is what we learned today from our mission blog:
These new missionaries are not new any longer! They have been with us and have been working effectively for 6 weeks! They are diligent and serving well. We are proud of them and their trainers!
President Clayton has taught, “If we want new and better results, we have to do things differently.”
And that’s exactly what we did!
We took the 7 Celestial Habits, and we made a fun game that highlighted the 7 celestial habits in a new way that helps us truly see their importance.
We begin with, of course, the vision: Baptismal invitation always.
But, focused on what we really want. We’re not interested in numbers. We are seeking for true converts! And they will be the ones with vision. Vision for what? For eternal life.
As we read in Preach My Gospel, our purpose “is to open the doors to the celestial kingdom,” and so we use the representation of the temple as the ultimate symbol, in this life, of the Lord’s kingdom.
The game consists in the different teams, having to exercise their abilities in:
1. Teaching the lessons in order
2. Helping investigators receive revelation (through Prayer, Reading the Book of Mormon, and Church Attendance)
3. Asking for references always
4. Evaluating and setting goals to work more effectively.
The first part of the game consisted in every team, having to collect all the pieces they would need to build their model of the temple. They got 2 tries. The first try was the challenging one, since it was something new for the participants, but the second time was a little easier once they got the idea of what they were trying to do. This part of the game was the more challenging part.
The second part was easier, since all they had to do was build the temple, but once again, they had to follow the order.
This game helped us all see how important these 7 celestial habits really are in our efforts to fulfill our purpose.
We learned, that it takes a celestial way of living and working to carry out a celestial work! and these 7 celestial habits that we have received from the Lord through our Prophet and the Twelve Apostles, truly are to help us fulfill our purpose.
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| Final Round! |
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| Elder Long is the Champ! |
Thankfully I survived another long bus ride tonight and we are back in Manzanillo again! I love this place.
The buses here never pass when we need them too, but always pass when we don’t. We literally spent almost an hour waiting for a bus and were so late for our appointments that I was stressed all day about it. I hate being late, especially as a missionary. It feel awful and throws the rest of your schedule off, not that it really matters when almost all of our appointments fall through anyway.
Tomorrow we are going to be listening to Elder Holland speak in a missionary fireside. I don’t have any more time to write because I still have a ton of laundry to do and it takes a long time to wash things by hand.
November 5, 2016
It seems like every person we find by contacting actually lives just outside of our area. We found two really great people today but they are in another area. I expected this work to be hard and tiring, but I really didn’t expect how much patience it was going to take. Sometimes, even though I really get along well with my companion, I just want to have a break for a bit. And more than that, there are just little things that other people do that bother me for no reason. It is so hard to be patient with those little things. It helps to realize that I do similar things that bug my companion. I think that the first step to becoming more patient is to start with being patient with myself. I have realized that a lot of the things that I don’t like that my companion says, is a direct result of something that I have said or done that prompts his response. They are all little things, but I find the little things bugging me the most. It’s just something that I have to work on. The 12 week training program teaches us missionaries all about how we should work and live. There are a lot of things to learn and change in order to be a good missionary. It would be hard enough just to change those things without learning a new language. So there are times when the task seems impossible. But then I realize that hardly anyone can be the perfect model of a missionary after only 12 weeks of training, or even 2 years. So yeah, I am learning to be patient with myself. The prideful part of me just wants to be to the point where people can see that I know my purpose an how to work to accomplish that purpose.
The more that I understand the subtle parts of the language, the more that I realize that there are a lot of very strange beliefs here in Mexico There is so much apostasy and false beliefs.
November 6, 2016
Our numbers were terrible for this week, but that is okay considering the time we spent on a bus and in training. I still feel good about our work this week. Of course we are very motivated to work harder this week and we made plans today of what we can do better next week. Today was an awesome day. We have two progressing investigators and one of them finally came to church today! It was a great meeting block too! Our investigator stayed for the entire three hours. He recently lost his wife and child so the lesson on the Spirit world was interesting to him. We taught him the second discussion later in the day and he understood our message and the Plan of Salvation before we taught him. When someone learns something by the Spirit, they accept it to be true must faster than when we explain it to them. Of course you can choose to deny the testimony that the Spirit bears to you, but you still know that it is truth.
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