Hey everyone!!
Wow, what a week. Some really good things have happened, some really bad things have happened.
Alright, so things that happened this week... Diego, the 24yr old we had a baptismal fecha with... Well we went to his house and he pretty much just asked us never to come back again. He said he was going back to his old church, lie, and didn´t want anything more to do with our message. How sad it was to see him... He couldn´t give up smoking, drinking, and well in a way, he was a little bit like Iban Farfal. Just scared to make any commitments. So we lost his baptism. Such a sad thing, but all E. Slaugh and I could do was tell him that we know these things are true, and when he´s ready to make these commitments, we´ll be in the chapel waiting for him. We have to focus on those people who are willing to change and commit to make their lives better.
I saw and spoke with my first drunk... And it wasn´t who I wanted it to be with.... Manuel, our man with the cats. This guy is so old, he comes up to about my chest, he´s so small. His baptism was scheduled for this upcoming Saturday. He had come to church, he loved it and everything, he was making commitments and was having his interview for baptism tommorrow. But apparently, Friday night, a group of kids saw him and decided it would be funny to beat him up. Apparently, they hurt him pretty badly. Brutally hurt, he crawled to the police station asking them to help him and do something about the kids. To his incredible embarassment, the cops did NOTHING. As a final result, he went to a kiosk and bought himself some beer. We found him Saturday morning, demasiado borrocho. REALLY DRUNK. It was incredibly pathetic, sad, and AH!! Drowning his sorrows in a bottle was... It changed things for me. He´s not getting baptized this week, but we´re going to try our hardest with him. I don´t know what´s going to happen. Something I´ve come to find out is that missionary work is about 15% the work of the missionary, and 85% that of the investigator. So much depends on them and their choices when we´re not there. It´s so tough and sad to see them choose wrong. Something also kind of sad about Manuel, a few days before the drunk scene we were cutting wood for him. I had a piece of wood that had a pretty big knot in it, and I swung and CRACK, I broke his hatchet!! Wooops! But don´t worry, I bought him another one.
You meet some interesting people when doing contacts, just one experience that wasn´t very fun was yesterday. We were knocking doors and this lady answered. She said we could sing her a song, so we did. After that she asked what we were doing out here. We said we had dropped everything for two years to preach what we know is true. All of a sudden, she goes in to kiss E. Slaugh. He had to pretty much wrestle out of her grip. After that, she was pretty much under the impression that we are abstainers from everything in the world for pretty much... ever. So instead, she starts yelling that we need to find work, get a girl and start doing stuff. As you can probably guess, we left pretty quickly.
We found a family this week. Actually, it´s the father of Fernando. We began talking with Tulio, the father, and halfway through, he started talking about his family and how he doesn´t believe in God. At this point in time, he has an ex wife that lives in El Bolson, which is about 2.5 hours away. He has part custody over some of the kids, she has custody over the other half. The things they do to Tulio's kids is insane. She keeps the kids, just to get the money from the gov. every month. She HATES those kids, and the boyfriend doesn´t like them either. They beat them with belts, and then pour hot water on the bruises and cuts. Pretty much hell for those children. All Tulio can think about is his children and how much he wants them to be safe. He´s working on getting full custody, and we are praying our hardest for him. It is because of this situation that he doesn´t believe too much in God. We are going to mend this family. This is going to be a miracle story for E. Slaugh and myself. If all of you at home can please pray for this family, and on fast sunday, keep them in your prayers and fast for them, I know some good will come. They need all the help they can get right now.
Other stuff... We´re working as hard as we can out here. We´re hungrier than ever, which is difficult... Haha. It´s getting colder and colder down here. I´ll probably need to get another pair of gloves and some little stuff like that, but not too much. I´m trying to stay away from spending when I don´t have too. Thank you so much for the prayers and support. We´re working our hardest out here, and although we haven´t gotten any baptisms since I´ve been here, I know they´ll come soon. They can´t not come with the work we´ve been doing. I have to go now, Have a great week, it would be great to see the pictures from the house! My poor Maggie-doll! Hopefully she doesn´t die before I get home, :( Jared, you need to write me, kid. Haha. love you all, Miss you all, The work is incredibly fun. I love Esquel, Argentina, E. Slaugh, and my investigators.
Amor,
E. Cuthbert
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