Week 48

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Well, this was a rather crazy week. First off, we had one of the best baptismal services of my entire mission, the baptism of Olga Thomas, who I think I mentioned a few letters ago. Basically, she is the most pilas investigator I've ever taught. She had absolutely no problems at all. She received her answer after the first visit and immediately began devouring the BOM. In just two weeks she had read 200 pages, rereading multiple times any part she didn't understand. Remember, all this is in a culture that is not very literate at all. Reading like that is practically unheard of. Anyway, her baptismal service was great. Very quiet and spiritual. I felt so blessed to have been able to play some small part in her conversion. She was so well prepared that she just needed for someone to teach her the doctrine and invite her to act, but it was still a privilege. One rather funny thing was that she was baptized while wearing a necklace of the Virgin Mary. No one caught that until it was too late. Someone's going to have to tell her eventually...

Changes are tomorrow. One Tuesday night the assistants called me to tell me that President Brough would be closing one of the areas in my district, Zaragoza, and would be opening a new one here in Patzicia. To form the new area he would be taking away from us one of our two wards, Reforma and giving that, along with another ward to the new hermanas that would be coming in. Basically, my area now consists of Zarahemla, a few small streets filled almost completely with members, and two big towns (one of which, Tecpan, has over 25.000 people) which only have small branches and are very far away. President Brough doesn't even want us to go there very often, so we're going to have to completely change how we work to be able to spend the majority of our time in just a few blocks with almost no non-members. It'll be interesting to say the least... unless we die from boredom.

Due to these changes, the assistants told me that I had a day and a half to find a house for the new sisters to live in. That was fun. I felt like one of the mission secretaries. I spent so many hours on the phone those days. What a headache that was (very literally). Still, we found a cool house that has avocado and lime trees and is just a few houses away from our house. We won't have to walk at all, but the new hermanas will have a huge area.

Also, last P day we had our district P day. It was fun and nice to plan a party in to which everyone was forced to come. We made a ton of pancakes on the nice gas stove in the church and then watched The Other Side of Heaven (again).

Hmmm, what else, well we had stake conference this weekend. We were so excited because President Brough was going to come and speak. The adult session on Saturday was completely dedicated to missionary work and we (the missionaries) were so excited to listen to president Brough give major chicote (literally =belt, as in, to give a whipping, but it basically mean reprimand. Probably one of the most used words in the mission, along with pilas, saber, and cabal).

We thought he was really going to give it to the members for not helping us. He really is quite upset with them. Most stakes have a full zone of missionaries. We only have a district and President Brough is thinking about closing more areas. Anyway, the speakers before him went way over their time and when president Brough spoke all he said was "My missionaries know I believe in being exactly obedient. My father, one of the 70, taught me that in a meeting I can't go over my time or extend the meeting if I'm not presiding. So, be missionaries, I know this church is true. I say these things..." And that was it. We were shocked. So disappointed...