Que hayamos tenido mas éxito esta semana por lo general. Ayer en la capilla fue bien chevere. 8 conversos recientes de mi área fueron. Usualmente son 3 o 4. Y 2 antiguos investigadores fueron también. Y un investigadora! Fue una fiesta en la capilla! Estaba tan animado! Obtuvimos una investigadora esta semana que se llama Ruth. Ella tenia un poquito de un problema con drogas, pero esta bien ahora y no ha tomado drogas en como 3 semanas creo. Hubo otro milagro esta semana. El P day pasado, Elder Gonzalez perdió su usb con todos sus fotos de la misión. Buscamos mucho para encontrarlo, pero no sucedió. Decidimos hacer una oración personal cada uno para recibir apoya para encontrarlo. Después el me dijo, pues, no me importa mucho mas y no se porque. Y todo el día fue como normal. Mientras estábamos contactando, recibimos un llamado de la lavandería para decirnos que ella encontró la usb. No dijimos nada a ella sobre eso. Y la usb es muy chiquito. Realmente hay milagros pasando en la misión! Elder Gonzalez y yo portarnos bien, así eso es bacan. No se como escribir tildes aqui, asi perdóneme por favor por eso jajaja.
(Google Translation: I think we've had more success this week usually. Yesterday in the chapel was very cool. 8 recent converts from my area were there. It's usually 3 or 4. And 2 former investigators were also. And an investigator! It was a party in the chapel! I was so excited! We got an investigator this week called Ruth. She had a little bit of a drug problem, but she's fine now and hasn't taken drugs in about three weeks I think. There was another miracle this week. Last P day, Elder Gonzalez lost his USB with all his mission photos. We looked hard to find it, but it didn't happen. We decided to do a personal prayer each one to receive support to find it. Then he told me, well, I don't care much more and I don't know why. And the whole day was like normal. While we were contacting, we received a call from the laundress to tell us that she found the USB. We didn't say anything to her about that. And the USB is very small. There are really miracles going on in the in the mission! Elder Gonzalez and I behave well, so that's bacon. I do not know how to write tildes here, so please forgive me for that. lol)
Halloween was interesting. There was an anti Halloween parade that came marching along while we were contacting. There were little kids that ran out handing fliers that said you're a satanist if you celebrate it. There were a bunch of kids actually that dressed up. More than I thought. They actually went trick or treating too. I don't know how much success they had since the people here are super poor. But they had fun and that's all that matters. Have a good week y'all!
-Elder White
Monday
I can describe how I'm feeling right now with a Napoleon Dynamite quote: "But my lips hurt real bad!" These canker sores are killing me. Elder Caro has already used his rationed roll of toilet paper, so he had to buy more today. We all have only used the bathroom like 5-8 times since then, so we still have almost a whole roll each. Elder Gonzalez had to sit him down and show him how to use toilet paper properly. It is was mind blowing actually. You really only need 2 squares to do the job. Life changing. Elder Gonzalez got a haircut after internet. So I took Elder Lainez shopping with me. There's a couple of shops that sell ties for 3 soles a piece, so that's a super great deal. After that, we went and got burgers. Then we went and just chilled in our room for the rest of the day until it was time to work again. Somehow Elder Gonzalez got his friend from Campay (his last area) to come and accompany us on our citas tonight. His name was Alejandro. Our cita with Maria Ester fell, so we walked all the way from the bottom of our area (almost) to Davis (the top). Even though he's 20, it was pretty hard for a guy that probably hasn't climbed a mountain before. I don't know what to think about him anymore, meaning Davis. He says he wants to be baptized, but he's not showing signs of progression. I don't know what to think of anyone anymore actually. Even the dogs. They've been catching me off guard recently and have gotten me to jump a couple of times.
Tuesday
We got up at 5:30 this morning to go to the multi zone meeting. It was actually a really cool meeting. There were a lot of really cool trainings and I got a lot out of it. There was this one guy that came and did an in depth presentation of the plan of salvation, so that was super cool. I was talking to Elder Lopez and he had to leave his area for an emergency transfer. When he was cleaning out his room, he found an extra plaque with my name on it that he gave to me. So now I have two plaques that say Elder White. Cool. I was talking to some of the other Elders and I found out that Elder Castillo got sent home. Part of it was bad behavior, but he didn't have a testimony I guess and just really didn't want to be here. It's kinda sad. The meeting got out super late and we didn't even get back home until about 7. We had an appointment with a girl named Ruth. We contacted her last week and she actually went to church. I didn't think anything of it though because she didn't seem interested about it and she just goes with her sister sometimes. But the cita went well though. She accepted a baptismal date. She does seem to have a problem recognizing the spirit sometimes. She's also addicted to coke and weed. But God will help us through it.
Wednesday
A couple of years ago, our mission was in apostasy, meaning the missionaries broke a lot of rules and didn't work extremely hard. President Amato fixed that up though. It's kinda interesting that it's a temptation to be lazy as a missionary. I mean, we leave home for 2 years to work our butts off, and the biggest temptation is to not work. I'm not lazy though, let's get that out of the way right now. Before the mission, I was always so confused when I heard about a lazy missionary. But now I understand, not that it's ok, but how tempting it is. I hope to be able to say with confidence in 20 or so months that I worked my hardest every day. And if the people didn't get baptized, it's their own fault because I was right there all along. Nothing overly interesting happened while we were contacting this morning. I spent almost $3 on a tube of chapstick. My lips were just that bad. It is garbage chapstick though because I have to apply it every 20 minutes. In other news, Elder Caro has wasted yet another roll of toilet paper. We had a cita with Maria Ester and it went well. We tried passing by the Peñas, but they weren't home. They're kinda frustrating me right now. Today was Halloween. There was a lot of papel picado (translation: chopped paper--confetti maybe). There was actually a church that had an anti Halloween march.
He got called to serve in Guatemala Sur! (Guatemala South). He also bore his testimony.
Thursday
Today is the start of no-shave November. Hard core low key bummed that I can't do it this year. Another miracle of prayer: on Monday, Elder Gonzalez couldn't find his SD card with all of his mission pictures saved on it. We looked for a while, but found nothing. So we each said a personal prayer. After his prayer, I don't think he even bothered looking again. He was just kinda like, "Oh well. I don't care a whole lot anymore for some reason." So we didn't look for it anymore. Then yesterday while we were out, we got a call from Huaycan 1. Our laundry lady found it. It's a tiny little card and we didn't even tell her to look for it. Truly a miracle. We had interviews with President today. He was running behind, so that throws things off a bit. Here's basically how the interview went: How ya doin'? I was pretty frustrated a couple of days ago, but I'm fine now. How's the fam? They're doing good. Cool beans. Any questions? Nope. You're a good missionary. See you next transfer. Basically that. The assistants were there for some reason. We went to take out money, but my card was being weird so I'll have to do it tomorrow or something. A couple drops of rain fell today, so that was cool. We had a pretty solid day of contacting today. We were about to head in, but we decided to make a couple more contacts. This one lady wasn't interested, so we asked her if she knew anyone that needed Jesus. She told us that the father across the street is in the ICU. I hadn't walked 20 yards when I found Jaime. I asked him how he was and he told me, "Awful. My dad's in the hospital and he'll probably die." Really sad circumstance. But it was a miracle we found him and were able to teach him.
Friday
Yesterday was Dia de los muertos, so everyone was in the cemetery. Today was Dia de los vivos, so there were a few more people than normal out today celebrating that they're not dead I guess. We had a lesson with Ruth en la capilla this morning. She read the folleto, which is good, but she didn't remember anything she read nor what we taught last time. So that's mildly concerning. We tried finding an ATM for me to take out money, but that didn't workout. We contacted pretty much the rest of the day. I don't think we had a whole lot of success with it. Maybe a couple guys at the end of the day were good. We went to the church to do an interview for Lomas 1. After that, we went contacting with Alejandro. I was talking to a dude and he asked me where I was from. So I said, "Where do you think?" He said, "Spain? Italy? Ecuador?" Psych sucka! I'm a Gringo! When I told him he said, "Seriously? But you have a perfect accent." *In that one clone's voice.* "Score one for the Republic." So that boosted my confidence. We also found this one lady that Elder Yañez and I contacted when I had just gotten here. She told us she had been a member for 12 years, but stopped going to church about a year ago when she moved here because she didn't know where the church was. We told her, but Elder Yañez and I never saw her again so we were just kinda like oh well I guess. But tonight when we found her again she told us that she was actually attending the 9:00 church with Los Lomas. It was nice to find out she's going to church again.
Saturday
Yeah, so Jaime's father passed away last night. That made my stomach sink when we found out. His dad wasn't that old. I don't know what I would do if my dad passed away. Any who, we had a cita with Maria Ester this morning. She didn't read though, so we couldn't really teach her. We tried visiting Dina. We didn't have a cita, but we were talking to them and they seem cool. After lunch, we had a couple citas planned. I decided we should go see if Cristopher could come. He's been cold recently. When we got there, he told us about a dream he had last night. Elder Gonzalez and I were in it. Basically I (or we) just called him out on it. We told him he was wasting our time when he canceled citas or accompanying us and burned him for not going to church and stuff. Pretty much what we wanted to tell him but didn't for some reason. I know that God talks to us in dreams. Milagros my boys. We took him to visit Carlitos. We contacted a bit and then took him to visit Braulio. That meeting went well, but Carlitos has heard a lot of anti doctrine, so that one was interesting. Another dog bit my pants today. Someday I'm actually going to drop kick one of them when their owners aren't there watching. We stumbled upon the funeral of Jamie's dad while were contacting so we hung out there for a few minutes.
Sunday
I don't know if you've ever tried making stove top jello for your first time which was in a 3rd world country without a kitchen, but I did today and it turned out pretty good. We tried passing by Maria Ester's before church, but it didn't work out. Church was actually really good today! Ruth came again! And there were 8 recent converts from our area there! Usually there's only like 3-4 RC's. So that was great. We ate lunch with Michael and Wendy today. Before I get too ahead of myself though, guess who else came to church? Jimmy and Elio! ¡Hay milagros en la capilla! We had another lesson with Ruth today and it went well. She's starting to recognize the spirit, so that's awesome. Contacting today was rough though. There were a ton of drunks, even for a Sunday. And the people that were out and about had absolutely 0 interest in talking to us. So contacting today wasn't all that fun. We had another lesson tonight with a lady named Naomi that was really receptive. We'll definitely go back to visit her again later. Sometimes while we're out contacting, people will ask us "¿De que iglesia son? ¿Testigos de Jehova?" Oh, come on. We're a whole lot more iconic than they are. It's like giving someone Reese's Puffs and then having them ask, "Are these Coco Puffs?" while they're still in the box. I've got a name tag too. And I taste better. I hate it when people misidentify my religion. I don't know what happened to Magaly. She just stopped going to church I guess. I don't know if I want to go back to her house because it's hard to get there and they don't show up for citas.
What happens when you forget to sweep your porch for a couple days.
The only butterfly I have seen here.
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