OH MANN!!! WHAT A WEEK!!!! WHOOOO!!!
This week has probably been the biggest emotional roller coaster ride... EVER. I can´t even begin to describe to you the ups and downs of it all... But I´m going to try... Here it goes:
The rest of Monday was... terrible. Ha, when it was time to work, E. Rojas SHUT DOWN. He began walking very slowly, and didn´t say a word the entire night. We went by Chino, a member to see if he could accompany us the next day to an appt. we had the next day, after that we walked to every single investigator we knew... And every appt we had fell through!! We didn´t teach ANYBODY on Monday, it was terrible. That night E. Rojas and I did our own thing, silently and went to bed.
Tuesday was supposed to be District Meeting, but E. Rojas was ¨sick¨.... So the Trevelin Elders and the Hermanas just sat in our pench, and we took pictures and wrote in journals. Mom... You´re going to have a surprise here pretty soon. There´s one for you, dad, Jared, Dani, Chris, Aubrey, and Kim.... HEHEHEHE!!! So, Tuesday was spent in the pension... ALL day. I did a lot of reading, writing letters, praying, making homemade brownies, stuff like that. I hated it. I hate not working. End of story.
Wednesday morning was interesting. In the morning, my attitude from the day before carried over and I was very down and gloomy. E. Rojas, after sleeping in for quite awhile, said he would try working. I took the advantage, jumped up, and off we went! I was feeling very sad and depressed, up until we reached our first appt. of the day... Diego! Do you guys remember Diego? He was my bread and butter in the beginning of the mission... He was my first lesson I ever taught, and he was also the first person to reject E. Slaugh and me and say, ´´I never want you guys in my house again´´. But, if I haven´t told you, we went by him again one day... Something told me to go to his house, even though he had said that to us. And we ended up putting another baptismal date... but a little bit shaky. We went by his house on Wednesday and had an incredible lesson on his desires to stop smoking and better his life. It was a lot of getting him excited to do what is right, and complimenting him on his efforts so far. Incredible lesson. At the end, he said: ´´I´m going to read the Book of Mormon... ¨´. WOOH!!! That made me SO happy. In that moment, all the depressed feelings from the day before vanished, I was happy. After that, we went to Patricio and Lidia. Lidia is a lady we found about 4 weeks ago that is 3 years inactive. No body knew she even existed! But we found her, and we began teaching her bfriend, Patricio. He is a member of a rock band down here in the Patagonia, drinks and smokes a lot... But... Idk, I love the guy. He´s such a stud, and he´s reading the BoM... SLOWLY, Haha! He doesn´t understand a lot, but he´s trying. Lidia was married in the church to another guy, but they separated themselves, without divorcing. She called us looking for help as to what she should do in this situation. She wants to marry Patricio, but she doesn´t have the money to divorce, and she doesn´t know if Patricio wants to be a member of the church. We´ll change that! ;) De Diez this family! That night, I decided to REALLY suck up all my pride, and be a companion with E. Rojas. At the end of the transfer. After SIX grueling weeks of torture. Hahaha, my pride does terrible things to me. But I did it. :)
Thursday we met a girl named Ailin. We had the first lesson with her, and the Spìrit was so strong, I asked her right then to be baptized for the 6th of August. She said, YES! She said she hasn´t felt like this in a long time. Never had anyone tried to talk to her about God, or about how families can be happy forever... It was an amazing experience. We need to pass by her almost every day to help her get ready. We´ve got our next appt. tomorrow. That night was soccer at the church. The Elders quorumn always plays on Thursday nights, and we got permission to play with them from our D.L.... They KILLED us. Argentines are INCREDIBLE. We picked up Diego before, and also Nicol, the son of Lidia. They played on our team, Diego is pretty good, but these other Argentines that play every week... Destroyed us. When we had to walk Nicol and Diego home, Nicol (He´s 11 yrs. old) Asked me to jump and touch every roof, or any high thing possible. Every time I did, he couldn´t believe it! It was such a fun night. Friday was a day of... Miracles. In the morning we had District Meeting and had a testimony meeting, because some of our District was leaving for other places. The spirit was so strong... E. Barton, who has quickly become my favorite person in the entire mission... He gave the testimony of how his dad has began his own church, and has broken the heart of E.B. He told us why he was here. I bore my testimony about many things... And at the end, everyone was crying, after all the testimonies. We vowed to do our very best to work as hard as possible. We had a very successful day, we put two more baptismal dates, found a bunch of investigators, reactivated an inactive family, and... DIEGO SAID, I¨M GOING TO BE BAPTIZED!!!!
The real miracle of Friday... We have 5 people we´re going to baptize on Saturday, the 30th. Diego, YES!!!!! Rita, (bfriend is Juan) Inés (best friend of Rita) Ruben (10yr. old son of Inés) and Roberto. The cousin of one of the members. 5 people in one week!! Do you notice how all the blessings and happy lessons came AFTER I decided to shape up and become a good companion with E. Rojas??? What-do-ya-know??? This is the biggest miracle... I can´t even tell you. That night, after everything... I find a sign on the side of a business that´s called: ´´Milagros´´´. This means Miracles in English. I took a picture underneath it, and you can tell how happy I am. Wow... The mission. The inactive family that we had a family home evening with, Familia Carmona... We went there and had a very good spiritual thought about eternal families, and played a game that E. Rojas had. I made the family homemade brownies... The most heavenly, incredible form of deliciousness that is known in this world. I put chocolate chunks in the batter, I put chocolate frosting on top of it, and whipped cream on top of that. The inside was so rich and moist and dense and... Ok, I´m going to stop bragging about my Brownie-making skills... Hahaha!! ;) My pictures aren´t uploading, and I have a ton to show you guys.... This is frustrating, Ha! I´ll have to show you the Milagros picture next week, the family home evening with the... Brownies... and also, a picture of me with a bunch of wild parrots!!! I have my tooth brush in my mouth, because I was brushing my teeth while looking out the window, saw them and screamed at E. Rojas, spitting toothpaste eVERYWHERE!!! I got the camera, and got a picture with them!!! Hahaha!
Saturday was a very stressful day. That night I was to find out if I was to be staying in Esquel for another transfer or not. After all our hard work, and finally having a fun, successfull time with E. Rojas... After finding out that I was about to help 5 people enter the waters of baptism the next week, I said... I can´t go. Because if I go, I cannot see these baptisms. I prayed so hard that day... that night... I was told that I¨M STAYING!!! I was so... shell-shocked, actually! Haha! I´m so happy... I can´t even tell you guys.
Sunday was incredible. We went and picked up Diego in the morning for church, (HE CAME TO CHURCH!!!!!) And he loved it. IMAGINE THAT!!! During Sacrament meeting, two of the members got up and gave talks on temples. Diego wasn´t understanding a thing. I was freaking out. Germán, that stud... He got up to give his talk as the last person with a talk. The first words out of his mouth were...: ´´Diego, I can tell you don´t understand everything... So I´m going to explain it.´´ He then used all the time in his talk to explain to Diego personally, very simply, what is a temple and things like that. He gave his testimony, relating to his own life... I owe so much to Germán... He has helped us so much. Diego loved church... Ah, wow.
I don´t have much time left, but I have one more story. Omar, a guy we´ve been teaching for the last week. We hadn´t found him for about a week before, and we finally found him on Saturday night... We were there with Juan Manz, a member who served his mission in Rosario Argentina... KOLT?? Are you LISTENING TO THIS?? DO YOU KNOW AN ELDER MANZ??!! He served 5 years ago.. Don´t know if the time is right. But anyway, we asked Omar how he was doing... And this was his answer: ´´Seriously? .... I´m just hungry...´´ I could not believe it. In that moment, I wanted to give him all the money in my wallet, go to the store, buy him every thing in sight and give him everything in my fridge. Juan Manz, being the stud that he is, ran out to his car and came back with a bag of bread and Mayonnaise. He gave it all to Omar... And we put a baptismal date for the 13 of August with him. I was so humbled that night... He had walked all day the day before, looking for work. His search lead into the night, and he didn´t arrive at home until early the next morning... He hadn´t eaten anything for 2 days. HOW CAN WE LIVE LIKE WE DO KNOWING THERE ARE PEOPLE LIKE OMAR WHO WALK AROUND ALL NIGHT LONG, LOOKING FOR A JOB JUST SO HE CAN FLIPPING EAT???' I could not.... cannot... I am so humbled right now... I can´t even tell you.
The church is true, and it blesses lives. I am so happy right now. This week, E. Rojas and I are going to break the standard of excellence. It´s the ´´bar´´ for outstanding missionaries. I´m working my hardest to get these 5 baptisms on Saturday. If all of you at home could pray for my investigators, every one of them, with all the faith that you have... I know they will enter the waters of baptism. They all have very tough situations, but this will help them.
I love you all, E. Cuthbert is doing fine and loving live here in Esquel. I love this work, and it is work!!! En mis oraciónes... E. Cuthbert
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