Elder McKay White: Week 21 in the Office

So, like normal as of late, this week was pretty crazy. Our investigators are doing well. We took Jeff and Gloria to the temple for one of the appointments. We were kind of concerned about them earlier, but we feel like that cita was really good for them. They're doing a lot better. William and Rosa are well. We're just trying to find a doctor to sign these medical certificates. The doctor that we've always had sign them won't answer his phone despite saying he would do it for us. We're kinda freaking out a little bit right now. Having him sign this certificate is literally the only thing impeding their wedding right now. It's only mildly stressful. In other news, we found out that Mario's wife (he got baptized back in late November) is in the process of divorcing him. It's very unfortunate. She didn't give him any warning whatsoever. And from what he understands, it's all because he got baptized into the church. It's very sad that he has to pass through this trial. But he's got a strong testimony and knows that the Lord will help him through it. So yeah, that was my week. William and Rosa should be having their wedding and baptism next week, but like I said, we just need that certificate signed. Have a good week!

-Elder White

Saturday

I know that repentance will make us happier in life. It will give us a clean conscience. When we want to come nearer unto Christ is when true repentance happens: we stop doing things that keeps us from having the spirit and/or start doing things that will be pleasing unto God. I know that when we follow the prophet's counsel to repent daily, we will be blessed exceedingly. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. We got up bright and early to play soccer against Vitarte. It was kinda frustrating though because all of their guys got there late. Oh well. We lost by a lot. We really wanted to be Elder Leite, but yeah. So the office tradition says that new guys need to buy pizza for everyone. Well, there's 4 new guys, so we were thinking it'd be easier and cheaper if we just went to Roll Star and had them each pay 100 soles. Sushi > Pizza. It was Elder Kimball's first time. We ate a lot of sushi. Not counting wings, ice cream or drinks, we ate like legit 20 rolls, probably more. We had to teach the new guys how to play Risk. I went 2/2, leading these noobs to victory against seasoned veterans. I left with the assistants to contact tonight a bit. They had some citas that they wanted to take me to, but those didn't work out. We met back up with Elder Pardo and Elder Davis so that I could go to the cita with William and Rosa. Everything seems to be going well with them. Rosa said that she had a dream where someone told her that she was getting married on the 20th and that on the 21st something was going to happen. She also said that Elder Armstrong and Elder Pardo were there somewhere in the dream, but then disappeared. She didn't remember that part all that well. People of the descent of Manasseh have dreams that prophesy and have legit spiritual stuff. I mean, if some white gentile dude told me that he dreamed that I were going to be next bishop, I'd probably laugh it off. But if there was a Poly or Latino--a descendant of Manasseh--that told me that, my next Google search would be "How to bishop of ward". I don't think that this 'event' is them leaving, but it very well could be. We'll just have to wait and see.

Sunday

I know that baptism is a sacred covenant and saving ordinance. I know that when we get baptized, we are completely forgiven of all our sins. We are literally reborn spiritually--it's a clean slate. I know that God blesses us a lot when we make this special covenant with Him. I know that this is the gateway of the covenant path to eternal life, which is what Heavenly Father wants most of us. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. So after doing some calls this morning, it turned out that Gloria couldn't come to church because her boss homeowner dude was away on a trip all week y llegó recíen hoy día (and just came back today). She said she'd next week though. But we did take Jess with us. Unfortunately, we didn't have any contacts or anyone like that come. Jeff left before we could talk to him afterwards, but from what I understand, he had a good experience. Hermono Loli (a previous 70 and mission president) gave the Sunday school lesson. As I was expecting, we got into more deep/weird/maybe-it's-not-true doctrine. In the middle of the class, that one really cool Brazilian family from La Molina walked passed the door. Their little girl (3 or 4 years old) ran in saying "¿Donde esta el Elder? (Where is Elder?)" She saw me and said, "Aqui está. (Here he is.)" She ran up to me and said, "Diga a los niños que no pueden jugar en el parque domingo. (Tell the children that they can't play in the park on Sunday.)" Then she held out her pinky, so I pinky promised her and she ran off. That was pretty funny. Also, very cute. I want one. For lunch, Elder Recalde, Elder Pardo and I went to eat with la familia Cárdenas. We had the same thing as last time--good stuff. They also gave us really good ice cream. They're a really cool family. There were a lot of milagro texts from the zone this week. We found a lot of new people to teach this week. We found a lot of new people to teach this week, like around 20 or so.

Our zone goal for February. (67 baptisms)

Elder Pardo told me a really funny story about Elder Laite. During conference with the Amatos, we all watched it in English while Elder Pardo and Elder Leite watched it in Spanish in President's office. They got hungry, so they opened up some of President's desk drawers to look for food. All they found were some weird blue plactic-y balls. Elder Laite: "Es chocolate?" Elder Pardo: "No creo Parce a plastico." "Si, es chocolate!" and Elder Leite popped one into his mouth, only to spit out red paint seconds later. He had tried to eat a paintball! Hahaha. I'm not sure why President had paintballs in his his desk. I miss Elder Leite. I really grew to like him his last transfer here.

Monday

Hey guys, guess what? I'm a personal representative of the Lord Jesus Christ! Do you know how cool that is? I know that I am called of God and that I have the authority to act in His name. I am here to do the things that he would do if he were here: to preach His gospel and to establish the Kingdom of God on Earth. I know that He is proud of me. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. We had our office meeting this morning. We talked about all the meetings next week: the one with Elder Holland and then the mulitzones/gira misional (mission tour) with Elder Gavarret, a 70. Elder Gavarret is going to do meetings with the office, visit 2 random rooms in the mission, and wants to go to 2 citas with investigators that have a date for baptism for < 2 weeks. Elder Pardo volunteered William and Rosa. All I'm gonna say is that this'll be interesting. A: I'm nervous to teach with a 70 there. B: They've almost dropped on us in the past. C: We've seen about a bazillion and a half milagros with them. D: did I mention he's a 70? We've got their wedding and baptism to worry about that week too. We all left that meeting a little stressed out. So Mayte called Elder Wilcox today in a panic. Long story short, she obviously has depression. Her psychologist prescribed her some meds to help, but they were way strong and made her dizzy and stuff. Her psychologist told her to stop, but her husband is making her take them, otherwise he'll take the kids and go because she's "dangerous". Like, he'll watch her take it and then check her tongue to make sure she swallowed. He's literally drugging her. We visited William and Rosa tonight. They're all good. We invited 2 of their grandkids for the lesson. We also visited members la familia Misari. They were cool and we blessed their home. Then we visited Gloria and Jeff. Gloria is doing really well; she says she'd 10/10. We had a really spiritual lesson on the Plan of Salvation. Jeff kinda worries me still, however. He'll be ok though. Today was an excellent day of contacting. I could really feel the light of Christ in me as I worked. I was smiling and trying my hardest to make it obvious that I honestly cared about the person I was contacting. It felt amazing. I feel like if I could find a way to replicate that every day, then I'd be baptizing an insane number of people.

Tuesday

I love the Lord. I want that made know perfectly clear. He is my Savior and Redeemer. I am eternally thankful for His Atonement. I know that He loves me too. I am ready and willing to obey future commandments that He has for me, and I''m doing my best to obey the commandments He has given me now. It is Him that I'm serving out here in the mission field. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. We made a trip to the temple this morning with half of the mission. It was nice to be back. It's a special place. Elder Pardo, Elder Recalde and I did a fast before hand to make it a more spiritual experience. Hermana Amato, Giovanna and Luigi were there too with their ward. I hung out outside a bit talking to Giovanna and waiting for Luigi, but he took too long, so I left for lunch.

After being financial secretary for 4 1/2 months, I finally went out and made a stamp today. It's a cool one. We had our correlations meeting tonight. It was cool because Andre bought us Domino's. So last night at like 10:15, I was walking along next to some road work. There was a girl that came walking by, so I went to contact her. As I did, the workers started using the artificial-steamroller-jackhammer device, so you couldn't hear jack squat. There was about 20 seconds of me shouting at the top of my lungs trying to testify about Jesus and her saying "¿Que?" The road work finally stopped and she was miraculously still there. Confused, but there. I started to talk, only to soon be cut off by Nascar passing by. There were 5 super loud cards that passed by all in a row. The girl was still there though. I got to better testify and filter. She's 17 years old and her name is Maricielo. She seemed super escogida in the contact, so I took out a cita. It was kinda a miracle that she hadn't walked away. We had the cita and long story short, it's still not her time. Funny how that works sometimes. Elder Pardo went with Elder Armstrong to Cieneguilla to look for a spot in the river to do our baptism. They found it, and they came back with a million mosquito bites too.

Wednesday

I know that the Holy Ghost leads us and guides us while we are obedient to God's commandments. When we follow God's plan, we are blessed with feelings of peace and joy. Se are warned of danger, both spiritual and physical. I know that we are also inspired to act for the benefit of others too, all by the promptings of the Holy Ghost. I know that wen we live our lives so that we're always worthy of that companionship, we will always find many blessings. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. We had consejo de distrito this morning. If I'm being completely honest, I'm not a huge fan of consejos. I understand their function and all, but I can't say that I overly enjoy going to them. Time flew by super fast today. We had a cita with Gloria at night. We invited the relief society president, Hermana Cárdenas to come with us. Their room is pretty small (we can barely fit 5 people in there), so we decided to go to the temple to talk. Since it was late at night, there was no one in the visitor's center, which made things a lot better. The first thing that hit me was an intense tranquility. It's just so peaceful there. It felt good. Gloria and Jeff recognized it too. All in all, it was a very successful appointment. Gloria got along really well with Hermana Cardenas. She was a tough egg to crack, but we had her laughing a lot at the end; I think that we finally have her trust. Jeff smiled more than usual, but still didn't say much. She's always had a lot of questions about tithing, so we spent a hot minute explaining it and testifying too. It seems like she understood now. Like I said, it was an amazing appointment. Gloria is very excited for her baptism.

Thursday

I know that sometimes bad things will happen to good people. It says nowhere in the scriptures that the righteous are exempt from life's challenges. The entire point of being on this world is to be tried, to learn, and to progress. If God takes away our trials, then in a certain way, we're damned; we can no longer progress. The trees that grow in the hardest conditions are the strongest. So in a certain way, I think God lets us pass through trials because he loves us. We are also humbled more, which brings us closer unto Him. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. Elder Shats was in the area, so he passed by the office this afternoon. He's another one of those guys that got carried away to Lima Tambo. I had to go to Makro (Peruvian Costco) with Elder Pardo today. We ran into Hermana Ana, our pensinista from Manchay. It was cool to see her again. We received a copy of William's partida today, so that's a really nice sigh of relief. We passed by at night to tell him. We asked him about the certificados de solteria (single certificates) and he said, "I paid for them today; they'll be ready tomorrow. Here's the receipt." Well, he gave us a receipt alright. A receipt for his jugo de piña (pineapple juice). We all got a good laugh out of that. It was sprinkling rain tonight, so that was cool. We also went to go visit Marleni. She's going to give a talk on vicarious and baptism on Sunday, so that's cool. She brought out papa rellena to share with us. It was pretty tasty. Underneath it was a piece of lettuce as decoration. As we were eating, Elder Pardo and Elder Recalde all of the sudden burst out laughing and couldn't control themselves. Marleni and I were very confused. She stepped into the kitchen for a minute, and they were able to explain to me that Elder Pardo accidentally ate some of the lettuce and Elder Recalde heard the crunch. So it was kinda funny, but those 2 chumps couldn't control themselves the rest of the time. They wouldn't stop laughing. It was only a little bit more than mildly frustrating for me. It was very immature of them.