Week 10 in the Office

Jalohuín (Latino pronunciation guide for Halloween)

This was a good week. Well, my boss from the area office came to audit me this week. That wasn't super fun. It was literally just a 9 hour long Elder White roast session. 90% of the stuff he roasted me about wasn't even me though since I'm relatively new still jaja. The financial audit taught me a lot of things that I can do better though and I'm doing my best to implement it. Our investigator Renzo is going to get baptized tomorrow night, so that's cool. His entire family went to be together in Huancayo, but he stayed behind for his baptism. It's kinda sad that he doesn't have any family support, but it is what it is. Sometimes the gospel isn't the easiest path to follow. But it's always worth it. Our other investigator Mario is doing pretty well. He has a lot of faith in Christ, which is funny since he was atheist almost his entire life. The night after receiving a Book of Mormon, his coworker was criticizing him over it. Mario just burned the guy. He said, "If you don't believe in this book, then you have no faith. And if you have no faith, you have no hope. And if you have no hope, you have no happiness." He barely even knew what the book was. He hasn't read those scriptures in 2 Nephi before, nor has he read the bible. So that was pretty cool to hear him stand up for the church like that. Halloween was pretty cool. We got Elder Pardo to dress up like the Book of Mormon and then went proselyting as a zone. The office along with a handful of other missionaries got the chance to go speak to a group of YSA's that are mission aged. Our job was to testify to them of missionary work and the blessings involved. The activity was super awesome. I always feel the spirit super strong in times like those. It was also super cool to see some YSA's from past wards that I've served in. Well, that's it from me. Have a good week!

-Elder White
 

Saturday
I know that daily scripture study will keep us close to Christ.  That is one of the most important habits that we must establish if we are to weather the storms of life.  As we read and study them, we build spiritual strength and gain spiritual knowledge that we otherwise wouldn't have had.  I know that the scriptures are the word of God.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.  We went to go play soccer against Central this morning.  It was a fun game.  We won 7-6.  At one point, the ball was high in the air coming towards our half of the court, so I sprinted out of the goalie box to get it.  I jumped to meet the ball in the air, only to see Elder Wilcox right there, looking to do the same thing.  Well I sorta clotheslined him and sent him flying.  I felt pretty bad about it.  Upon further review later in the day, his nose was black, but not broken.  Also, he had a mild concussion.  You can't prove it was me though.  It could've been from when he got hit in the face by the ball.  He wasn't mad though.  It's a good thing that he's a super traquilo dude.  We had a Risk game marathon in the office today.  I won 3/3.  That was pretty cool beans.  Speaking of cool beans, I've gotten a few other missionaries to start saying that too hehe.  Yesterday morning we had a cita with Renzo.  The cita before, he officially invited us to his baptism haha, so we did the pre interview.  He passed, but we really need to teach the restoration again.  It might be good to do lesson 3 again as well.  Tonight we were out contacting, but then decided that we needed to go to the stake talent show.  Apparently there was some cool stuff before we got there, but most of the things we saw were kinda cringy.  But oh well.  We finished the night off with more contacting.

Sunday

16 months.  That's a big number.  It's super weird because all the hermanas from my group like Hermana Memmott and Hermana Lindquist are going home at the end of the transfer.  It's also weird because when this transfer started on Tuesday, I had exactly as much time as my trainer Elder Yañez did when I first met him.  It was my second sweet 16, so I treated myself to a bag of sour patch kids. I know that as we are in the service of others, we become more Christ-like.  If we're unhappy in life, it's because we're too focused on ourselves and aren't focused enough on the others around us.  There's always as good act that we could do at any given moment.  The days were I can perform a service are my happiest days.  Every small act counts.  I know that as we serve others, the Lord blesses us immediately.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.  Church was good today.  Elder Wilcox left with Elder Armstrong to pick up a contact he had made, Gulnara, and her 16 year old daughter Alexa as well.  I left with Elder Pardo to go pick up Mario.  T'was a little more complicated than we thought it would be.  We called 30 minutes before we arrived to confirm and he did.  But when we got there, he wouldn't answer.  He eventually did, but we got to church 10 minutes late.  All in all, we had Renzo, Mario, Gulnara and Alexa on our part.  We went to do family history for Elder's quorum.  I was kinda worried about doing that for Mario's first time, but he really enjoyed it.  After church, we talked to Renzo to try and sacar (take) all of his dudas (doubts).  It went well.  He said that he was feeling a 10/10, which is good because over time he's been 10, 10, 10, 8, 7, 8 and now 10.  We went to go eat lunch with la familia Segundo today.  Pucha maquinaria pesada Batman!  They gave me enough broccoli and carrots to give me all the nutrients I'll need until the millennium.  We had a cita with Mario tonight.  We took him over to a member's house to do it.  Mario didn't seem like he was going to be able to comprehend a full lesson tonight (he's sick), so we taught him the OLA.  It went well enough.  He says he'd excited to get baptized November 23.

Monday

I know that I am a child of God.  I know that he loves me.  I believe that God put us here in families in similitude to the family we lived in with Him before coming here to Earth.  The family is an eternal unit that brings us great happiness.  I know that the greatest happiness that we can find here in God's plan is through the family, a blessing that we can all joy in together.  The family is such an important thing.  A lot of the commandments we are given are specifically to protect/bless families.  I know that if me and my family live a Christ-centered life here, then I'll have the privilege of living with them through the eternities.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.  This morning we went and played sports with zona Mayorazgo.  We were excited to play volleyball because Hermana Lindquist and Hermana Clyde were both on competitive teams, but they didn't even try, so that was lame sauce.  We played this weird catch and throw volleyball elimination game for a bit, but then the Hermanas were like, "We're gonna go now," so we as Elders were all like, "Futbol!"  Still kind of a boring game.  At one point I had a flawless bicycle kick that would've been a goal, but then my face did the goalie's job for him.  I guess I deserved it since I made a goal with a ricochet off of Elder Alfaro's face and also destroyed Elder Wilcox's face on Saturday.  We had a lot of boring office work today.  President relieved me of my duty to find a bouncy house, which is kind of unfortunate because I had literally just found this cool rental website.  Oh well though.  While out working tonight, we went to go visit Gulnara and Alexa.  We were pretty excited about the cita but it turned out to be a much more complicated situation than what we were expecting.  Turns out that Alexa is super rebellious and doesn't believe in God and wouldn't even leave her room.  Gulnara has a super active sister that's a member in Utah, so she's talked to her a lot about the church.  And their 91 year old mom lives with Gulnara and is dedicated to her temple covenants.  Basically, Gulnara wants more than anything for her daughter to believe in Jesus and thought our church might help Alexa.  Alexa said she was bored the whole time.  We taught her a lot about faith and then left.  We're basically looking at a package deal: double or nothing.  If Alexa decides to get baptized, then we know Gulnora will too.  But Gulnara wouldn't do that by herself because she's a dedicated Catholic.  So we're looking for ways to get Alexa to like church.

Tuesday

I did some interesting studying, unintentionally, on how to be a good Christian.  There was an interesting passage I read in 2 Peter 1, I think.  It listed a bunch of qualities such as patience, charity, godliness, etc. and said that if we're not constantly displaying these characteristics, then we're not fully repentant and nor are we doing a good job of keeping our baptismal covenants.  Then I listened to a talk by President Ballard where he talked about how we need to be good exemplars of the church.  It's getting bigger and receiving good attention, so when people meet us they need to have a good impression.  He said some good tips about dealing with persecution.  For example, don't let unimportant things bother you.  And when you're talking about the church with people, we need to set the agenda.  Basically we need to control the conversation in a way that we talk about our testimony and good experiences in the church rather than letting anti-church stuff come up.  I know that if we do this, we will have more success in spreading the gospel.  President Amato was in the office all day for interviews.  He brought us sandwiches and cupcakes in the morning, so that was pretty good.  Most of my work during office hours today was getting things ready for when Francisco comes to comes to audit me tomorrow.  I did everything from depositing all of the extra money in my office to vacuuming.  I've already decided that I'm going to wear all black tomorrow since I'll be attending my funeral.  How do I think it's going to go tomorrow?  Ah yes, good question.  Think of the most evil, horrifying thing you can possibly imagine.  Then multiply it, by 6!  All I know is that we haven't had an audit in 3+ years, so he's going to have a lot of things to roast me about.  Oh well though.  We were going to have a cita with that same MA named Paola again, but that fell.  What we did do tonight was have Renzo's baptismal interview.  He was in his interview for a long time, so I was starting to get kinda nervous, but he passed the interview alright.  His baptism was going to be on Saturday, but then we moved it to Friday night because of Stake Conference.  Then this morning, President told us about a missionary activity for YSAs that we're going to do Friday evening far outside of the mission.  We'd get back kinda late.  I'm not sure how we're going to pull this one off.

Wednesday

I know that God wants us to develop our talents.  I used to have the talent of cursive (he is writing in cursive this entry), but I fell out of practice with that one.  I know that the Lord will bless us as we develop our talents, especially when we use them for good or serve others.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.  Just like every other day this week, Elder Wilcox and I went to the office 1/2 hours earlier than normal to get our companionship study done, which is a good thing because Francisco, my boss from the area office, was there bright and early at 9:30 AM.  Things were going well; I was thinking that we'd be done by 3 at the pace we were going.  Then at 11 he got a call.  He basically said, "I'm busy at Lima East with an audit and won't be done til 5 or 6."  Dang it.  Right before lunch he burned me pretty good because the housing side of things was poop.  We took a lunch break.  Before he came back, I said a quick prayer that things would go better in the 2nd half, and they did.  It's interesting, almost all of the crap I got roasted for was the fault of past secretaries.  President came in at the end and roasted me and looked at some stuff too.  I didn't deserve nearly as much as I received, it was a brutal day, and it didn't end until 6.  ["McKay?  More like Mc'quemado!  (More like Mc'burned!" --Elder Napier)]  We did a baptismal interview for the assistants then visited Mario.  One of his coworkers told him the Book of Mormon was bologna, so Mario gave him the "if you believe not in the Book of Mormon, ye have no faith, if ye have not faith ye have no hope" lecture.  Cool beans.

Thursday

I know that I am a valued son of God.  I truly do love Him, and He loves me.  I was reading in 2 Nephi 28 today.  I really liked the way that Nephi described God's love for us in the 2nd part of the chapter.  The Savior forbids no man to come unto him.  There is no one fallen too far from the path that the atonement of Jesus Christ can't bring them back.  He wants nothing more than for us to live a life close to Him in the Gospel and to help others to do the same.  I know that He is the only true source of lasting happiness.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.  I learned a lot from Francisco yesterday.  I know a lot of things I can do better or change.  That man went straight savage at some points.  We completely took apart one of the caja chicas that a past financial secretary did, looked at the mistakes and then reorganized it.  That financial secretary is regarded as the best of the financial secretaries so that came as a surprise to me.  While Francisco was there, we played a prank on Elder Tenney.  During lunch, I called and asked if he knew of anything odd that happened with the budget in June.  He said he knew nothing, so I was like, "That's ok, don't worry about it."  Then when Francisco and I started up again, the other Elders called him and said, "That discrepancy Elder White mentioned was a lot bigger than he thought.  He's in a meeting with President and Francisco ahorita (in a bit).  They need you ASAP."  Poor guy probably pooped his pants a little.  It was a funny prank though.  Today's Halloween, or Halloweed as I've heard a few people call it here.  You've heard of "trick or treat: now get ready for "ocupadita o apuradita (busy or rushed)".  That's original and funny, you've gotta give me credit there.  Elder Pardo went out, got a big cardboard box, and then painted it and decorated it to be the Book of Mormon.  Then he wore it contacting.  We got the entire zone to come contacting with us.  

 It was crazy; there were a lot of trick or treaters in our area.  Like, Utah kind of levels.  All of the houses are private with door bells, so I was confused at first on how they were getting their candy.  But then I saw that it was the stores and hair salons and stuff that handed candy out.  People didn't stop too much, but more so than I would've thought.  It definitely helped our animos (encouragement) to work together as a zone like that.  Elder Pardo let me try on his Book of Mormon costume:

Friday

I know that thanks to Christ, all mankind will someday be resurrected when He comes again.  It will be glorious.  Our bodies will be perfect.  I  know that Jesus defeated the grave for us.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.  Unfortunately, we had to send a sister missionary back home due to health problems.  It's too bad; she was a cool cat.  Elder Pardo and I got to the office this morning and the Amato's were there saying bye to her.  President had the two of us go with him to his house to have a meeting.  Hermana Amato gave us milk with avocado, a Brizilian breakfast that's surprisingly good.  We talked with President about Gracias a El (thanks to Him) for a long time.  We just ran into problem after problem: broken iPhones, forgotten emails/passwords for those emails, wrong phone numbers in videos, etc.  We had to leave that a little early at 11:30 because I had a cita planned with Renzo.  He seems pretty fijo (set) for his baptism.  We were gonna do it tonight, but then Lurin (more on that in a minute) happened all of the sudden, so we moved it to Sunday.  Then we changed the time we were going to do it Sunday after too at the bishop's suggestion.  I feel kinda bad moving his baptism around so much.  He doesn't seem bothered though.  This morning, Elder Pardo and I got up early and went to the stake center in La Molina to play basketball.  Not gonna lie, I was pretty trash to start.  Like 0/15 on free throws kinda bad.  I got back into my groove towards the end though.  It felt really good to get out and get some shots up.  Any who, President was asked to go speak at a JAS (Young Single Adults) convention of all the OG Lima East JAS in a spot of Lima called Lurin.  It's way south and on the coast.  He got permission to take missionaries with him, so we and Mayorazgo and Santa Anita went.  We were able to catch a glimpse of the ocean on our way down.  Moist beans.  I was able to see Oswaldo, David, Jordy and Benny from Alameda there.  Then all of the sudden Marleni walked past and waved.  I'm not sure how she got in since you'd have to of registered months ago, but I ain't complaining.  Our group addressed around 200 young single adults that are in the age where they can serve a mission.  For part of it, Elder Wilcox and I took 10 of them and shared our testimonies on missionary work and explained why we came on missions.  Other groups went for the hammer approach but I've always liked the spiritual-slap-to-the-face strategy.  We got worried and glanced around to see if it was working and 3 or 4 of them were crying.  Then we asked them to share experiences too.  The spirit is always super strong at times like this.  Mission accomplished.

On the way home from the conference.