September Zone Conference/ Toenail removal and Relief

September 17, 2017 - September 24, 2017

          What a week! We had the confirmation of the kids and Javier today! They are officially members.  Anyway, Sunday was a normal day.  We taught E and J about patience, basically how to treat each other like they should.  They are kind of a wreck, always arguing and hitting or yelling at their kids.  I don’t know how much we can do to help them.  

          Monday was a normal day. My companion called the President on Sunday night and told him that he wanted to go home.  I feel kind of responsible like I could have been more patient, loving, and a better example.  I don’t know, but I feel like there are a lot of things that I could have done to help keep him motivated and happy.  Regardless, it is his choice to make.  We spent the morning writing home and buying food.  Then we taught H. which went as it usually does.  I tried to focus more on the needs of my companion today when I taught the district class.  I don’t think that it really helped much.  

         Nothing much interesting happened on Tuesday.  

         Wednesday was kind strange.  We did our weekly planning because on Thursday we had to go to Colima. Anyway, we went to go look for J, but only found our new investigator L, but she told us that she is not interested.  Later we looked for some old investigators and they they gave us dinner and bought us sweet bread, but didn’t really want to listen to us.  then we taught a member about the Melchizedek Priesthood.  

         On Thursday we got up at 4 to go to Colima as zone leaders.  Elder B and I went.  It was a leadership training with President Clayton.  It was a super cool, instead of talking about numbers/baptism (which they never do) they taught about leadership and how to motivate, how to be motivated, and how to be happy in the mission and serve with all your heart.  One of the take home lessons for me was that President Clayton and Sister Clayton are more concerned about our future and in developing the skills that we need in our future life than they are about our present. They want us to learn how to receive revelation not only for the mission but also for the problems and trials and decisions that we will need to make later in life. Our mission has fewer and fewer missionaries. 

         We stayed the night in Guzman and returned to Tamazula Friday morning.  I payed the light bills and bought toilet paper first thing - missionary necessities. We taught H. in the morning and he had questions about false prophets and started worrying about our message.  But we talked about the great apostasy and the need for a restoration.  The guy seems to believe more in aliens than modern day prophets.  On the way to food and tried talking to Elder F. and help bring the gospel to everyone. I tried to talk to him about how the mission isn’t all about us personally, but it’s about helping God’s children.  But he just kept comparing/mentioning people that finished their missions but were fried, those bad missionaries.  He didn’t want to hear any examples of great missionaries who endured to the end.  “i’m not them” and “I can’t be like them,” he kept saying. And finally he said, “I’m tired, I just want to rest, and I can’t rest here.”  Well that feeling I can understand, but that’s part of our sacrifice.  And really it is an incredibly small amount of time to sacrifice, only two years of our whole life.  Even if we give our whole life, it’s nothing really for all that the Savior did for us.  In the evening we went to see J, an investigator who we had previously dropped but I felt that we needed to go and read the Book of Mormon with him.  So we passed by after ALL of our appointments fell through, and he invited us in.  We didn’t mention the church, or baptism, we just read the scriptures with him and his wife.  They seemed to really appreciate it.  

          A funny thing happened to me today.  I fell asleep during lunch which is very unusual for me.  But it turned out that the members gave me a fruit juice that is known for making you sleepy.  I was really thirsty and I didn't know about the sedating affect of the juice.  So, that literally knocked me out for about 20 minutes.  

         Saturday was an interesting day.  I got a call from the doctor, who happens to me a member, saying that he could take care of my toenail today!  We didn’t have any appointments so we rushed around in the morning trying to do something productive, but Elder F ended up cutting his hair which is definitely a p-day activity.  I was tired of arguing with him.  After lunch we went to Guzman and I finally had my ingrown toenail removed.  They injected my toe in like 6 different places until I couldn't feel anything, and then they just pulled the bad part of the nail off.  It seemed pretty harsh. Then they treated the nailed with something to kill that side of the nail that keeps getting ingrown.  Then he slapped a big old bandage on it and gave some pills to take.  We walked to the place where we needed to pay and we didn’t have to pay anything or even use my insurance card.  We had an interesting talk with the taxi driver while the feeling in my toe slowly returned and was replaced by PAIN!  Thankfully the pain wasn’t much worse than the actual ingrown toenail pain. Glad to have it done!

         We stayed with the zone leaders that night.  In the evening they let a recent convert in to their house to give him a blessing (kind of strange) and Elder M and I stayed up late reading the Book of Mormon.  Sunday was district conference which went well.  I played the piano, except for an acapella choir (not a good choice in Mexico) which was strange.  They san almost angrily.  Other than that, it was a great conference.  There is a lot of work to do in Guzman.  The members have stopped caring about each other and the church is suffering because of it.  After the conference, we had lunch and interviews with President.  They went well.  One of the elders ate some kind of nut that made him sick and he had to go home and get some medicine.  Another sister had serious issues wit her asthma and stayed home.  They are going to move her to Guadalajara tomorrow.  President Clayton told me that my companion is going home, maybe as soon as Wednesday.  He will give us his decision on Monday.  He told me that he still feels I need to be here in Tamazula and would try to get me another companion quickly.  But he also said that, “It all depends on what the Lord want to do with you.”  So, who knows, anything can happen.  I feel that there is a small chance that President might put my companion in the officer someplace where he doesn’t have to walk very much. We will see.
         We returned to Tamazula in the evening with just enough time to stop by and see H., who told us about his time travel thoughts and all the TV shows about aliens and things like that.  My comp believes in things like that as well, and I don’t know how much more I can take. Seriously, I don’t know what to do about this investigator because he wants to learn and he seems so good about some things, but way off in other ways. No one is perfect so I feel I can’t really be a judge.