Well this is weird. I just realized that it`s almost thanksgiving. To me most days are pretty much the same. There isn`t really a difference in holiday spirit around here. Except that lots of people have already started putting up their Christmas trees. Looks like I`ll be here in Milagro for Christmas, which will be fun.
This week has been pretty good. Hermana Niño and I have fun working together, but of course there is always the first awkward couple of days getting accustomed to a new companion and flow of doing things. You`d think by now I`d have it down, but I feel like every second I am learning something new. But the good news is we get along really well. She reminds me a lot of myself when I was starting the mission. All the rules seem so restricting and dumb and the schedule is...an adjustment. I just hope she figures stuff out a lot quicker than I did. I feel like it took me an eternity to finally decide to forget about myself and try doing things the Lord`s way. Starting the mission is hard. I am glad I never have to repeat that experience. Ha.
Let`s see. News of the week. We had a baptism! A girl named Vanessa got baptized on Saturday and confirmed Sunday in church. I think I wrote a little about her last week. She came late to her baptism because her boyfriend was taking forever to get ready. And then we had to wait for her 5 billion friends to come. And then we took pictures.
And then the baptism started. I`ve had a little cold for the past couple weeks, and I was supposed to direct the hymns, which is a really awesome job when your voice is all scratchy and you sing like a man. A lot of the young single adults in the ward came and shared their testimonies. It was a really simple baptismal service, but way powerful. She was beaming and everything was great.
Blah blah blah. This letter is so boring for some reason! I promise it really was a good week. My brain just feels like scrambled eggs because we decided to make this chocolate death cake because we didn`t get permission to go buy shoes like I wanted to today. So we ate. And now I am in a sugar coma.
Okay. Back to my life. We`re teaching a 95 year old lady. She`s in a wheelchair and has no teeth. I can NEVER understand what she is saying. But the good news is she hardly every says anything. Mostly she just laughs and stares into the distance. Her name is Rosa, but we call her Rosita. Her son is our ward mission leader and she just recently moved in with him so that he and his family can take care of her. She`s been coming to church for a couple weeks and this week we asked her if she wanted to get baptized. She told us she was already baptized in another church and asked if it was against the rules to get baptized again. We said no, and she agreed to get baptized this coming Saturday. It`s a little tricky teaching her because she forgets things really easily, but we adore her.
Also we`re teaching two 19 year old boys, friends of members. They`ve been coming to church for a couple weeks but it`s sometimes a bit of a battle to get them to understand that they have to read the Book of Mormon and pray. Why are such simple things so hard for us sometimes? But they`re good kids.
Both of them came to Vanessa`s baptism on Saturday. They showed up just before she stepped into the water. I made everyone push the pause button so we could have Johan and Cristian come in and see it for themselves. It was good for them to see what exactly a baptism is. Also they keep asking about serving a mission. Also when Johan walked into the baptism he was wearing an RSL jersey. Random. The world is very small, and I still have no idea where he got it or why he randomly decided to support RSL. I wonder how the MLS playoffs are going?
So. You know when the Lord steps in and asks you for the one thing you don`t want to give Him? Sort of like that story in the Bible of the young rich kid who asked the Savior what he needed to do to follow Him? Christ told him to sell everything he had and he would have eternal life. The boy hung his head and walked away...deciding that it was too hard, and in doing so he denied himself salvation.
It`s like that sometimes in life. We think we`re doing a fairly decent job keeping the commandments and everything (not perfect, but giving it a solid effort). And then suddenly the Lord invites us to follow Him...but to leave something behind or do something hard. Perhaps it`s a habit like drinking or smoking. Or perhaps it`s getting a calling to teach the Old Testament in gospel doctrine. Or serve a mission. Or move to a far away city.
At first most of us go into panic mode. Our insides twist and scream and we want to crawl in a hole and die. "Anything but that!" we say. But intelligent people take 5 deep breaths and realize that the Lord asks us to do hard things for our own benefit. We pull ourselves together and take the task head-on. Because if we never did a single hard thing in life we`d never get anywhere in life. So even though it hurts a little and it`s not actually the most pleasant experience ever, after a while we realize that it`s the only intelligent thing to do because it`s the only thing that takes us closer to our own promised land.
This week our mission president asked us to do one of those hard things. We talked about the language we use and the power our words have. As representatives of Christ we should speak as Christ would speak. President invited us to get rid of words like chevere, chuso, vacan, bina, freaking, chutica, etc (Ecuadorian equivalents of crap, dang, rad, etc) in an effort to become more distinguishable servants of the Lord.
To be honest at first I thought it was the dumbest idea I`d ever heard. I thought we should speak like the people here to gain their confidence and respect. I saw nothing wrong with saying that something was cool. I started making a plan of how I could continue speaking the way I speak in secret, but censor my words when leaders were around. Ha. Maybe I shouldn`t admit to that. But whatever.
And then I realized I was the one being ridiculous. I am pretty sure that if we told the Savior about all the bad things that happened that day he wouldn`t respond by saying "Chuso, que freaking bina...espero que manaña sea más chevere." ("Shoot, that`s a freaking bummer. I hope tomorrow is cooler.") So most likely I shouldn`t talk like that either.
Breaking the habit hasn`t been easy. My companion and I sound sort of goofy using words like marvelous and excellent, but it`s a good change. It`s been a good chance to seek the Lord`s help in breaking bad habits. I have a little more empathy for investigators that have to break habits like drinking coffee and smoking now.
Well. I guess that`s all I`ve got for the week. Please don`t laugh at how cheesy all my emails are. I can`t help it. Remember when I started the mission and said I would never become one of those cheesy frumpy missionaries? It happened. Oops.
Love you all more than free platano to make patacones and chifle.
Have the best best best week of all time.
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