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| MY NEW COMPANION, ELDER AGUSTIN |
Well…. Missionary work is sometimes the most discouraging thing ever. We work hard. We walk many miles every day so that we can teach people, but they don’t read or attend church or do anything to try to change their lives. It is just discouraging sometimes to work so hard and not see any fruits of your labors. Sometimes I wish that agency wasn’t a thing. Last night was New Year’s Eve and that is why none of our investigators came to church today We were almost late ourselves today because public transport was non existent. All the investigators that we talked to either were a few hours out of town or went to sleep at 6 in the morning so they couldn’t get out of bed this morning. Normally that wouldn’t bother me, but the holidays are just killing the work, Something cool though, all of our plans fell through (not the cool part), and we couldn’t do anything because we didn’t have a member present (also not cool), so I thought ion the only other person I could come up with to visit who is a less active member. My intention was to visit the son, though honestly I didn't feel like visiting anyone and just really wanted to go home. When we got there, only the mom was home so that meant we couldn’t stay to visit at all. She is totally inactive and really not super interested. As we were visiting with her at the door, another member showed up who is the Young Men’s President. He told us that he didn’t have any plans to visit today, but he was in the area and felt the prompting to stop by. So we were able to enter her home and share the message that I felt prompted to share. I don’t know if it will change a thing, but it was still a cool little miracle for me that lifted my spirits.
January 2, 2017
Man today was interesting. We went early in the morning to go FISHING with some members which if any of you know me, you will know that fishing is my anti-talent. I don’t want to say that it was a waste of time, but it was a waste of time. But, the members we went with are super chino so I still enjoyed it despite the sunburn. We got a call halfway through our p-day that our p-day was going to change to Wednesday, not today because of a meeting with the mission leaders tomorrow in Guadalajara. That meant that my comp, who is District Leader had to get on a bus while I get to stay here and do a companion exchange for a day. Unfortunately they couldn’t find a bus that left before 2 am, literally all the bus lines were booked because of the holidays. So the other two Elders stayed with us to teach all day and crash at night. It was fun. We taught one of our investigators who is struggling with addictions but has a huge desire to change. My companion grilled him and I saw a side of my comp that I haven’t seen before. He is a pretty fiery guy. He straight up told this guy that if he finished the beer in his hands, that he would never be able to leave alcohol alone.
Later that night I locked us out of our house so we didn’t get in until about 9:30.
January 3, 2017
Weird day today. The concillio was today so Elder Taylor and Agustin had to go at 3 in the morning and I got to stay here with a brand new missionary, Elder Martindale. That was fine because his mother is from Vera Cruz Mexico so he is very fluent and speaks better than I do. We had to take an extra hour in the morning for his 12 week training. I was the one teaching which was weird since I just barely finished the training myself. We spent part of the morning talking with a member who had a bunch of questions about Patriarchal blessings. I felt very inadequate to answer most of his questions. In the afternoon, Hermano Amador accompanied us so that was fun, except he and everyone else kept saying how bad my Spanish is and how incredible Elder Martindale’s is for only a week in the field. It was mostly sarcastic, but still. There was a guy who opened his window as we were standing outside and started swearing at us saying things like “go away, there is no holiness here, God is not her, only the Devil, only the Devil.” He probably said, “Puno doable aqua” like 20 times. But maybe that is a normal missionary experience that everyone had in South/central America. Both other than that today was pretty normal. elder Martingale is going to be a great missionary honestly. He helped me realize that I still have a ton of pride and I still have a lot that I need to change in order to be a better servant.
Today was interesting. We spent half of the day proselyting and the other hand in a p-day. Like we went to write our families at 4 and then at 6 we went back to teaching, but then at 8 we eat shopping for our food. It was just a confusing day really. We were teaching one of our investigates and i am not sure how it happened but she started taking about us and about how important our work has been in her life. She told that we are carrying people’s should in our hands, which isn’t true, but we do teach people so that they can bring themselves to repent. She said that she thinks she finally found the right path in life with this church. It was a good lesson that was guided by the spirit.
January 5, 2017
Today was slow. We had our meeting with the mission leader and then he went with us to teach these two teenaged girls who are friend’s of a member. They were really great to teach. They read, go to church, ask questions, and are generally awesome investigators. Today we taught the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity. It is always a little awkward, but really not too bad. That was the sum total of our lessons today though. We spent the rest of the day contacting, which I suppose was a sort of repentance for not doing very many contact the past few days.
January 6, 2017
Today we taught the first half of the Plan of Salvation wit 2 different people, which almost never happens. We also taught a less active family about fasting. President Clayton taught us that in order for a fast to be valid, you must make an offering, but that missionaries don’t have to make an offering because we are dedicating all of our time to the Lord. I really didn’t take fasting very seriously before my mission, but there is real power in it. I am learning some good things here in Mexico.
There are a ton of Americans in our district right now. Out of 6 missionaries, 4 are gringos. Poor Hermana Hooper. She is training right now and her companion knows very very very little Spanish. But it will get better. The first few week are very hard language wise. The new sister is Hermano Herman and she understood very little of her first district meeting. I felt her pain because that was me just a few months ago. The rest of the day we just taught less active members and recent converts. It was a pretty normal day. I was extra tired for some reason. I don’t know why.
January 8, 2017
Late church + Fasting = Unhappy Elder Colvin. Our meeting time changed to the late start time which is good for investigators because they can’t get out of bed for the early meeting time, but bad for the fasting missionaries.
It is hard to describe the happiness that you feel as a missionary when an investigator shows up to church! It makes the miles you walk just melt away. Although the three miles we walked after lunch was just miserable honestly. This afternoon we were looking for a contact that we made the previous day and right in the middle of a knock the door flew open and this guy got super rude and aggressive. He actually freaking scared me. Also a drunk guy started talking to me in the mix of Spanish and English about how many random facts he knows. I honestly think that I have had a conversation with a drunk every single day of my mission so far, sometimes several times a day. At the end of the day, when there was nothing else to do, we visited with the Ramirez family and they gave us a bunch of references which will give us something to do the rest of the week!!
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