I took this off the mission blog - I am guessing it was a zone conference

Monday, January 5, 2015

Thanks for all the pictures! As always, glad to hear about everybody and see everybody. And the superstitions look beautiful, that´s pretty cool. Kate and Sarah, that´s funny. How tall is kate now? sarah still the same? Looks like everybody´s doing good, our family is sure good looking. I heard about the girls party, Jen was there and said that sarah and kate were looking ¨gorgeous as usual¨. And that dinner that dad made sounds like heaven....that´s exactly what I want when I get back home. Plus some homemade bread. Actually by that time I´ll probably be so accustomed to balleadas and fried food I won´t want anything else. I am developing a little soda addiction, I´ve been having to watch myself and force myself to buy water instead of soda. And my chocolate made it just fine! the cherries were a little damaged but they tasted the same. I could probably use some new contacts soon-I´m fine for now but I don´t want to be without them while I´m waiting for a package.  Also looking forward to hearing about sarah´s tournament. And that´s glad to hear about the baptism, sounds like a good fit.

Here´s my update. I had a bunch of stuff written down to tell you all but I forgot it and I´m gonna have to try and remember everything.

As far as my comp goes, I´m not gonna write a ton about him cause it´ll just stress me out but basically he´s the polar opposite of everything I respect in a person. Thinks he´s a thug. dishonest. lies to people. offends people. and he´s just not quite right. I´m not sure if he should have been allowed to go on a mission and he has some mental issues I think. He has an odd obsession with the law of chastity and shares odd scriptures. We´ve had investigator tell him to shape up, and people have asked me in private if something is wrong with him. But, it´s all good. He does like to work, more or less, so i can´t fault him for that. But I´m working hard to find the good in him and I´ve found how to work with him and how to motivate him and how to be the senior companion even though I´m not. He´s like a brand new missionary and president told me to train him basically. So I have to make all the decisions while still making him feel important and in charge. But he knows the scriptures very well and is very intelligent in that regard. He´s really good with kids and he gets us all kinds of free stuff because he asks for food and meals like I never would. I always get mad when he begs for food, but...I can´t really be mad because at least we´re not going hungry. We´re working well together and the experience has humbled me and made me rely on Christ alot more and focus more. I don´t have time to be anxious when I´m only thinking about how to work with my comp. And I´m trying hard to just be friends with him and love him too, and he´s growing on me. His disobedience is improving rapidly and I give lots of positive encouragement. I figured that this is my lot for the next little while and I better make the best of it, so I´m enduring and enduring well and learning alot. So that´s that.

we worked alot this week, we met the mission goal of 35 lessons a week and most missionaries only do that 3 or 4 times in their mission.

We have 3 promising investigators: Marsela, of the familia velasquez, is 19, and lives with a wacky family but she has the desire and is coming to church. If she can understand everything and keep on progressing she´ll be baptized in two weeks. Gustavo is an attorney and very intelligent and is investigating the church on his own. We have done next to nothing because he never has time to meet with us but is attending the church on his own (this is huge) and reading. When president Kline was here to reorganize our branch presidency President taught a class, and Gustavo made a comment about how if he is the head of the household and providing the money then he gets to call all the shots and be the boss of the house. And then president Kline tore into him and told him firmly how he was wrong and how he needs to change, and Gustavo really respected that and seemed to take to it and it ended up being  a really good experience for him. Then we have Jaisler, who is from mosquitia (just about the most undeveloped, uncivilized place on earth-look it up) and here to find work. He´s 29 and had no knowledge of God or anything when we started. So that has been a cool experience starting from step one and working our way up, and watching him develop faith and prayer and hearing him talk about how he feels in his prayers and his readings. He is really hard up though, and he hasn´t had any work and when he came to church on sunday we found out through asking some prodding questions that he hadn´t eaten in 3 days and the 3rd day was just an orange. So after church we rounded up a bunch of scraps in our apartment and gave it to him-some eggs, a little oatmeal, little cornmeal, little milk, some rice, gatorade powder, and some little biscuits-and dropped it offf with him. The only challenge with him is that he killed a man in his younger years-he was in a room with his cousin and someone came in and killed his cousin, didn´t see jaisler, and then as the man was leaving jaisler shot him in the back three times. So he´ll have to be interviewed by the mission president for that one but because he had literally no knowledge of God when he did it and he´s very repentant about it, I think it will be approved. Teaching him reminds me of Ammon teaching King Lamoni. If everything goes well he´ll be baptized at the end of the month.

And then we have about 20 other investiagtors but those above are my favorites.

The weather is beautiful right now. It´s always sunny, dry, 85, and breezey. The water looks beautiful and this is the high season. Lots of tourists on the island. Some of the tourists that I met when I was just starting out came back and it was fun to see them again. I told you all last time that I wouldn´t want to return here but I changed my mind. You all would love this place. With all the water activities, pirate/plantation/indian history, different languages, tourist stuff, museums, food-the family would have a blast here. I just got all crochety before thinking how much the tourists bothered me I didn´t think I would return but now I want to again.

Also ran into a tourist from new york the other day. Still hate em.

we´re doing a lot of work right now in a place called spring garden, and its beautiful. It´s up in the hills and far away but its real rural-picture steep hills covered in banana and coconut trees with thick jungle plants all around, and then little grassy meadows with chickens running around, and then when you climb the hills you can see the ocean down below and on clear days you can see the mountains on the mainland.

Thanks to writing out all my problems I´m out of time, but that´s my little update. Love you all, miss you all, and can´t wait to hear from you again! Next time I´m going to do my best to get pictures of people and tell you all about them. I´ve gotten really close with alot of the people here and it´ll be sad to leave them. I´m probably gone in februrary.

Anyways. bye now!