Elder McKay White: Week 9 in Alameda

We had a baptism this week for Maria Fernanda. She's pretty awesome and it was a great service. We also picked up a mini missionary named Elder Pulido during the week, so we're in a trio now. We had some miracles in the making and got a couple of new investigators. I found out today about the death of one of my close friends from back home. Even though I am super sad to hear about it, I take comfort in knowing that God has prepared the Plan of Salvation for us. Tell your friends and family you love them, because you never know if something might happen. Have a good week everyone.

-Elder White

Monday

My dad told me once that he prays every once in a while to be humbled. He said that he hated it in the moment, but was always thankful after. I was always just like "Oh heck no! I ain't about to pray to have misfortune!" But I got thinking about that and started praying nightly for that. When God heard that, he just said, "It's about time boy. You've got 19 years of extreme pride to make up for." And then hurled this freight train of a situation at me. But then he saw that Elder White can barely lift the caboose, let alone all the freight cars. So he sent Arnold Schwarzenegger to help out. Then he finally took it away today. Elder Mayta and I started off right where we left off yesterday. So when we went to internet I marked my email to President urgent in hopes that he'd read it before the interview we had scheduled for 6:00. I was very frank with my feelings. I had an extra minute at the end of internet, so I downloaded Fergie's National Anthem. It's a hymn, so it's technically allowed. I also found the remix version. While it was pretty funny, I couldn't justify downloading it. After lunch, we got a call telling us to go in to meet with President at 3:00. It was a long interview. The three of us talked it out. Elder Mayta talks to me now! President gave us some chocolate and the assistants gave us a slushy that they couldn't eat because they were fasting. That was nice. It was good to have our unity back too. It's still a bit awkward at times, but we're much better. The very first contact I made was a lady who just recently got reactivated. She started telling us about how now her husband had recently started talking to her about baptism. While that is super cool, they still need to get married. So we'll see what happens in our cita. I made another contact right after for this family that seemed genuinely interested. You've always got to wait 'til the cita to get excited though. The noche de hogar that we were going to do tonight got canceled. So instead we went to Oswaldo's house. We helped him put together his new chair, and then I roasted a dude in English that was sending Oswaldo hate mail over his YouTube channel.

Tuesday

Well, we're almost back to normal now. We joke around like we used to, but every once in a while there's a bit of an uncomfortable silence. But I'm glad we're at where we're at. I was starting to worry an emergency transfer was coming our way. It's kinda weird though because I'm less happy than I was when it was going down. I was out contacting when I noticed that, and that I was kinda bored too. It wasn't until just a couple of minutes ago that I figured out why. I got what I asked for in my prayer: God humbled me to the dust. Literally. To get through that I had to turn to Him in every last thought. I learned to find the good in every single situation. I was genuinely happy despite how miserable I could have been. Today I unfortunately wasn't as anxiously engaged on that as I could have been. So now here I am; thankful for this spiritual locomotive that plowed me over. Now if only I could humble myself that much without challenges like that. That would be happiness in its purest form. It's kinda interesting how all this works. We went out and contacted this morning and then did the same things after lunch. We've been contacting a lot recently. But God has also blessed us exceedingly recently: For the last week, the weather has been overcast with wind 90% of the time. Otherwise I'd look like a burnt chicken nugget. Carlos and Charo invited us to talk to one of their friends that's 17 at their house. It quickly became evident to us that she didn't believe in God and was only there because she was obliged. But they didn't get the hint. They kept talking about church and then even started talking to her about serving a mission. That got kinda awkward. We had Mafer's baptismal interview. While we were waiting, a drunk dude came up to us. We had seen him a couple of days ago. He had been talking to Elder Mayta, so I tapped him on the shoulder and we walked away while he was confused. Couldn't do that today though. He was pretty funny. He started speaking in broken English, "I am from Salt Lake City, Idaho." He asked us where we were from, so we all made up a country. Except for Mafer. He was like, "No, you're Mexican." He called me "Carne blanca" (white meat). That was a first. He wanted to whisper me a secret, but while he was, someone interrupted him. So he turned and whispered in English, "Shhh. Shut up." That was super dang funny. Mafer passed the interview perfectly. After that we did our correlations.

Wednesday

Today was interesting. It was really a classic example of "This day went nothing like how I thought it would." I was at the district meeting and Elder Carrera had me go with him for a minute. He was just like, "So when are you guys going to go to the office?" "Why would we go there?" "To pick up the mini missionary." "What mini missionary?" "You guys are going to be in a trio now. Did the assistants not call you?" Nope. That did not. All that happened 1 1/2 hours before we met our new friend, Elder Pulido. We got out to pick him up kinda late because the zone leaders were busy burning everyone. But we arrived just in time to say hi to his mom. We took a taxi back to our house with all of his stuff. It was the first time in over 6 months now that I've worn a seat belt. Everyone uninstalls the seat belts in their vehicles here for some reason. The dudes from the office came an hour later with a mattress for Elder Pulido because we didn't have stuff for another dude to be living here. Elder Pulido is from Santa Felicia in La Molina. He's pretty shy and doesn't talk a while lot. He'll be with us for the rest of the transfer and then will have a week or two at home before heading off to his mission in Piura, Peru. We all met up with Aylin and David and went to go visit a CR named Neli. She's pretty cool. She's a bit older and in bad health, so she hasn't been to church for a while though. We went looking for a couple of references that we had gotten, but we didn't have any luck there. Since we were in the area, we decided to visit la familia Astuhuaman. We talked for a minute and invited them to all the church activities that are going down this week. They gave us this fruit called granodia, which is fitting because it kinda looks like granada. We got a cita with Bruno, Jean Franco's friend, tomorrow. He seems pretty interested in the church, so I have high hopes. They we passed by Evelyn and Juan Carlos, my contact from the other night. The lesson went pretty well and they were receptive. They told us that they were going to talk and get back to us on the whole marriage thing the next time we visit. Tonight when we passed by to get our Venezuelan pastries, the dude gave us each a free tequeño too. I almost cried real man tears. It was my first authentic Venezuelan tequeño. It's like a churro, but with cheese and a bit of flavoring and without the sugar obviously. So good, so good.

Thursday

"Los ricos helados a un sol."--the little kid in the moto taxi that sells ice cream. Iconic. Elder Wily stole an extra Pizza Hut pizza from Elder Sanches' two week training a couple days ago and we enjoyed eating it last night. We went to the dentist again this morning. It seems like Elder Mayta's mouth was destroyed more so than usual. Maybe his mouth will be ok someday eventually. It's kinda cool being in a trio because you never need to worry about finding a varon to go with you on citas. We went to go and visit Jherson today. He just got back from his trip to Huancayo. He's not sick anymore, so that's great. After that we went and visited Bruno, one of Jean Franco's friends. He was pretty cool. His mom came in though and sorta took our attention away from him while we were teaching. Elder Pulido taught for his first time and didn't do half bad. I extended the baptismal invitation to Bruno and not his mom. Partly because she told us she's catholic, but mostly because the spirit told me to. He was about to say yes when his mom said, "No, he's already been baptized. He's catholic." It took some self control not to retort, "Your mom's a catholic." I wasn't talking to you lady. Is your name Bruno? You told us when we started that it was up to him to choose what religion to follow. That got me kinda triggered. But we talked her into talking to Bruno about it. Then we went to Erick's house. His mom had invited us over to try tequeños de aji de gallina. While they were good, I was a little disappointed that they weren't better. Regular Tequeños are the best. While we were there, we used the opportunity to talk to Erick about a recent covert we haven't been able to help super well. From there we went straight to the ward movie night activity. Church activities rarely go as planned from what I've experienced. Before the movie, we had to hurry and pop the popped corn. While we setting it all up, we realized that the sound cable was broken, so we had to go on a quest around the ward to find one that would work. The movie night was still a success though despite all the complications. We met Nelson finally. He's a CR that's friends with pretty much the whole ward. He works as a chef on a cruise ship, so he's not really around a whole lot. I saw a Venezuelan girl that I see all the time walk in that's not a member, so that was good. But then her clone walked in right behind her. I had no idea that there were 2 of them.

Friday

We had to get up early this morning to go to an emergency zone meeting. When we got to the stake center, everyone was quiet and studying. That was kinda odd so I asked what was up and they told me that the assistants were there. It was at that moment that I thought to myself, "Did I really get up at 6:30 to come to an early morning roast session?" Before that though, we had interviews with the assistants and zone leaders. They were pretty lengthy. We got there at 8 but didn't have our interviews until around noon. (We were last.) I did it with Elder Madruga and Elder Carrera. They wanted to know how the area was as well as how well we were working. I was honest and told them all the stuff we need to change. They they told me about how great my area is and about future plans of dividing the wards of Alameda and San Fransisco into 3 and about plans of a new stake possibly. It was pretty chill. While I had been waiting I just talked to Elder Shumway and my other friends to pass the time. Then came the roast session. They only burned us only a little bit actually. It wasn't quite as bad as the one in Chaclacayo. I enjoyed it actually. We had a cita with Mafer today. While we were there it rained lightly. It was a lot more than just a drizzle. The runoff was super dirty with dust and got my sleeve all dirty. People tend to freak out when it rains here. The news will do a story on it and everything. But some people really just need to put a roof on their house. Before Mafer, we visited a member named Patricia. We visited the Astuhuaman's tonight. We knew that they'd try to feed us, so we said we had to go, like 20 minutes early so that we could get to our next cita on time. But we were still 15 minutes late to the next one, which was Juan Carlos and Evelyn. The main thing we talked about was their marriage. At first they were kinda like, "Eh...," but at the end they were down to do it. So we don't know what to think. At night, Alfredo was watching the news and they had a part on weird things Maduro (Venezuela's president) has said. Here's some of my favorites: "Yo trabajo duro las 35 horas del dia." (I work hard 35 hours a day.) "Uno puede encontrar la felicidad cuando es feliz." (One can find happiness when one is happy.) "Simon Bolivar se quedo huerfano de esposo." (Simon Bolivar stayed an orphan husband.) Then he was talking about a shortage of food or something and made a relation to Jesus with the bread and fish. Except he accidentally said something completely different for bread that I can't repeat here. That dude's crazy.

Saturday

I think I have termites. I've found a couple on my arms and even one in my hair. I don't know what part they're eating, but I'm honored that they think I taste as good as authentic Peruvian wood. I know that we actually have a termite problem with our wardrobe, but I hope they don't spread to anything else. We did weekly planning this morning. How bored did I get, you ask? Bored enough that I took my lighter and started singeing my arm hairs to entertain myself. Today we had a zone attack in my area. It was the first time I've had one in my area before, so that was cool. I got it organized pretty well. We got everyone sent to their spots and then we went to contact too. I had a couple of really good contacts actually that have some good potential to progress. When we got back to the capilla, we collected all the references. There were a TON. We got probably like 15, which is super awesome! We had Mafer's baptism right after the attack. San Fransisco had a ward baptism right before, but they cleaned up fast, which was great. There were a lot of ward members out of town, but Mafer fortunately invited a lot of her friends. She was kinda self conscious about the white dress we had for her, but then Oswaldo came out looking like the albino Teletubby and she was fine after that. We had Elder Pulido give one of the messages. He has a bit of a fear of public speaking and talking to strangers, but he'll get over that fear real quick. Oswaldo performed the ordinance for her. Everything went pretty smoothly. Mafer has a really strong testimony. I realized that Carlos is probably going to tell every youth he meets to serve a mission. I mean, it's cool and all, but sometimes it scares people. Before the baptism we got a call from Hermana Houghton. That was odd. They came in at the end of the service with a girl. Mafer got to chose the last hymn, so she asked us to do a trio and sing "Noche de Luz". I don't know why though because we were horrible in the ward program. But I don't think we sounded all too bad tonight, but maybe my ears are broken. After the service we talked to the Hermanas. Turns out that their investigator moved into our area. And apparently she's pretty awesome too. It seemed hard for the Hermanas to say bye. But that's how they work I guess: they teach with love and we teach with authority. After the baptism we went looking for a contact that I had made. We weren't able to go into their home to talk because their baby was sleeping, but they seemed cool.

Mafer's baptism:

Sunday

Another adventure is in the books. We were supposed to pick a dude up this morning, but he wasn't home when we passed by. No one that was contacted went actually. But all of our converts went today, including Bruno and Arlet, the girl from Tilda. All is good in Alameda. After church, Rocio told us that Titi's mom was in the hospital and that he was crying. So we took him into a room and tried to comfort him. He's about 24, but he's also kinda special. He was crying uncontrollably and somehow cried himself to sleep while we were talking to him. We were just kinda like, "Well, that was kinda weird," and stepped out to talk about what to do. I noticed that he was starting to drool a lot, but that's normal I guess. But then he started to fidget a bit, and then a lot. Nimord was just like, "I got this," and laid him down and used alcohol to wake him up. He was telling us, "Yeah, he had a seizure at a JAS dance once too. We didn't do anything at first though because we thought he was dancing like he was being electrocuted," because that's just how Titi rolls sometimes. People here in this ward have a lot of practice with this kinda stuff I guess. Titi was pretty normal when he woke up. We had a brief panic when it came time for lunch because the relief society didn't have anyone assigned to feed us. But then, thankfully, the same family from last week stepped forward to feed us. After that, we went and had a cita with Juan Carlos and Evelyn. They had some family in town that are members, so that was cool. They told us they decided to get married, so that's exciting. When we asked them when their goal was they said, "We don't really know, but before the end of the year though." 😐 ¿En serio? (Seriously?) Fortunately their brother stepped in and said that Elder Erickson got them married in less than a week. So I think that made them understand better. After that we came aback to the room to change into our suits from the fireside in La Molina with all the CR's in the mission that could make it. When I put those suit pants on though, they were tight enough that I had to undo my button to wear them. I've got some weight to lose I guess. The only CR's that came with us were Nelson, Daniel and Jordy. There were well over 1,000 people there; it was crazy. I felt the spirit strongly when President Calderon was talking throughout the whole talk, so I know the CR's testimonies were strengthened because mine was too. All my converts from Huaycan are inactive, but I saw Alejando, Yolada, Nicol and Doris (whom Elder Gonzalez is helping get married). I also had time to talk to all my friends in the mission too. It was a really fun night.