No
we had nothing of a Thanksgiving meal. It´s ok though. It´s not a huge holiday.
The mom of the American Family died so they had to go to the U.S. for the
funeral over Thanksgiving. The start of the transfer was terrile. Worst week of
my whole mission...not a great start. O well...yeah there is a mini transfer
but not many people will get moved around. I don´t think it will effect me at
all. It´s not something to worry about.
 |
| Elders Wiley and Buckway: Ground-Breaking for a new Chapel. Visiting dignitaries or invited to help clean up after? |
Yeah
they have decorated stuff for Christmas already. They have big lights up above
the street. I guess January 6th is the big holiday. It´s called The Kings. And
it seems more like Christmas than Christmas here. I´m sure they just decided to
think of another day that they could all skip work.
Hm I
don´t remember a Dan Herda. But that´s cool he knows Heather.
Anyways,
back to how much this past week sucked...
For
P-day Monday we went to San Fernando to say goodbye to the people that were
leaving the Zone that week. We ate some food and watched 17 miracles. Which was
like the 8th time I´ve seen that movie on the mission.
Then
Tuesday we had District Meeting. We set some goals as a district for the next
transfer. And we made a calendar of scriptures passages about Christ and we´re
all going to read one a day until Christmas. It should be fun.
 |
| District Activity (Calvin and Hermana Daly) |
Wednesday
morning we went to the other Elders area to help them out because they don´t
have many people to teach. We contacted and knocked a couple streets. We worked
the whole morning in their area and gave them like 8 potential investigators. A
few of them could be promising. Then at 4 we had to go to San Fernando
because the Stake was having a big ground breaking celebration for the new
chapel/stake center that they are building. The Elders in San Fernando couldnt
go because they were doing transfers so we went for them. It was pretty cool. I
put some pictures of the event and of me and Elder Buckway burying a time
capsule that they made.
Thursday
we had a few lessons, taught English class, and then went by a inactive family
I had never met before. They were the first members in Chiclana, and have been
inactive for at least 20 years. I asked them if they still had a testimony and
they said of course, and that they´d die with their testimonies of the church.
I´ve heard this from tons of inactives, and it really strengthens my testimony
that you could be so far away from the church, and so inactive, and still have
such a strong testimony that the church is true. But then I asked them if they
still read the Book of Mormon and they said NO WAY. They said it´s an incredible
and inspired book but it´s too confusing to understand. So that´s why they
don´t read it. I was thinking about that later and I think that it´s so hard
for them to understand because they no longer have the spirit with them to help
them to understand the doctrine and meaning of the scriptures. Which I think is
a characteristic of an inspired book. To need the guidance of the same spirit
that helped write the book, to testify of its truthfulness.
Friday
was really fun! We had 5 set lessons planned! Lessons that we had called
before, and they said they´d be there ready for us. Perfect! But, they all
decided not to be there! So all 5 of those lessons failed us. So once again we
spent all day, and most of the night walking around. Doing nothing of
importance really. We found a few potential investigators but not very
promising. Luckily we had to run over to San Fernando for a baptismal interview
for the Sisters there. The guy that I did a baptismal interview for like two
months ago, Jose. I had to fail him because he didn´t believe in Joseph Smith,
he was ready this time and we did the interview again. He said he believes a
little bit that Jospeh Smith was a Prophet. I shared a story in Mark chapter 9
about believing. I asked him all the questions, and all of them he passed. I
was still questioning whether his answer that he believes ´a little bit´ in
Joseph Smith was sufficient. But then at the end of the interview I asked him
if he wanted to get baptized and become a member of the Church, and he said
yes. And then I asked him if he felt ready for baptism, and he said yes. And I
just got such a good feeling when he answered those questions and I knew he was
ready. I wanted to go back for the baptism the next day, but we had a lesson
set with an investigator at the same time, and of course we were very certain
and excited that that investigator would not fail us.
O
BUT WAIT!!! SHE DID FAIL US!!!! Just like everyone else in the world. So we
spent most of the day just wondering around again. Before saturday, I wasn´t
quite sure if it was the worst week of my mission. But saturday definitely
confirmed it.
But
one thing funny happened Saturday. We went by our 16 year old invesigator Angy.
She told us she didn´t want to quit smoking, so she´s not getting baptized anytime
soon. But she told us she prayed and repented a little and felt really good
afterwards. So that made me really happy. We decided to stop teaching her about
the terrible decisions shes making in her life, and go a little easier on her.
We have a cool lesson where you empty out a bag of tea, and you prop the empty
teabag up like a cylinder and stand it up in the palm of your hand. Then you
light the top of the bag on fire, and it burns down to your hand, but right
before it gets to burn your hand, the teabag flies up in the air. It´s about
standing strong in trials. but we did it to angy´s hand, and after it floated
up she said ´¡¿QUÉ SIGNIFICA??!. Which means ´what does it mean??´ We wanted to
tell her that it means she´s a chosen daughter of God and needs to be baptized
immediately, but we just explained about faith.
Then
Sunday morning at 8:30, President Deere called us, saying he was an hour away
and needed to talk to us. So we met him in the capilla. We were freaking out
and had no idea why he would drive all that way. We thought we were getting a
new companion or one of us was leaving. Then President came in and said to
Elder Buckway that he needed to talk to him alone. It was then that I realized
something bad must have happened to one of our families. He was talking to
Elder Buckway for long time so I realized it must be something with his
family. After about 15 minutes President took me in and told me that Elder
Buckway´s mom was just diagnosed with breast cancer. But I guess it´s really treatable
and common. Buckways dad works at a hospital, and their best family friend is
the head doctor in charge of the cancer clinic where she´ll be going. Elder
Buckway is doing really well though, and doesn´t seem to be affecting him too
much. His mom is doing well with it too.
Then
right before Church one of our investigators (C.......) and his girlfriend who is
23 and has been an inactive member for at least 10 years showed up. We were
totalyl surpised. No one recognized Vicky at first it was a little awkward, but
she hadn´t been in the chapel since she was a little girl. But soon everyone
realized who she was. many tears. But she and C..... stayed for all of church
and Carlos was contributing a ton during the lessons. He wants to get baptized
and is a really spiritual person, but he´s also 19 and wants to have fun. It´s
hard to teach him a lot, but he and his parents I think are ready. We just need
to get them focused on learning about the gospel. Then in the middle of the
sacrament S....., the recent convert inactive that we baptized a couple months
ago showed up. It was a total surprise. She said she is a part of another
church now. But when I saw her I almost started crying I was so happy. I wanted
to go up and hug her but it was in the middle of the sacrament and I´m a
missionary, so I didn´t. But I was really happy.
That´s
it for everything this week. I wrote a lot sorry. There are some pics of some
mold that we have in our apartment. I guess it´s really dangerous but we
cleaned it pretty well. Also some pics of the ground breaking.
Love
ya!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Calvin
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