So, I got to the mission and was quite excited and disappointed. The mission president is amazing. He is so loving and cool. He is very friendly. I felt I was able to open up as much as I needed to in our interview. There are a lot of interesting things in our mission. There are a lot of rules for 2 reasons. One: the missionaries need them because they are disobedient. The second reason is because of our privileges. Everything went smoothly with the plane ride. Both my bags weighed 50 pounds exactly. My carry on weighed 25 pounds. It was full of books. The plane was quite small. The food they served us when we got there was amazing. It was actually real. I forgot what real food tasted like. All of the paperwork for driving, cell phones and what-not went well. We went out for a teaching experience the first day before we would get sent to our area. I went out with Elder Mendez. It was fun. I actually understood a good portion of the conversation with one investigator. That night they told us who we were going to be matched up with and where. I got matched up with Elder Mendez.
Now, these first few days have been tough. because we are moving apartment buildings. We had to pack everything in the apartment and move it. And now we have to clean the old apartment which missionaries have lived in for 5 years. It is disgusting. I have only taught a couple lessons. We cover the entire city of Pocatello. The English missionaries don't have cars and cover small portions of Pocatello. We cover the whole thing. I have been the one driving because E. Mendez's license expired. Now, I was expecting that the missionaries here would catch the vision of the mission. Boy, was I wrong. Even the missionaries that have been here 2 years still talk about girls all day long, and listen to music that is christian, but not very inspiring. They love teaching, but not a single one has lost himself in the work. Well, I like my companion. He obeys most of the rules. He is the only roommate I have had that is more picky about cleanliness than me, yet his stuff is till cluttered around.
Although, we do have investigators. We do have a baptismal date for this next Saturday. And missionary work is happening. My companion is great. loads of fun. Non judgmental. Positive. not prideful.
So, we have a lot of privileges. We drive cars. We only have so many miles. We have phones. I will tell you more about it later. We can also use the computers at the family history center 3 times a week: Monday for email, Wednesday for our
mormon.org account which we are supposed to do, and on Saturday to type up stuff from weekly planning. There is always a little extra time to do other stuff on
lds.org, mormon.org, and
familysearch.org, which is why I want to know how to get to the records on mom's side of the family.
We have a few good investigators. We actually do as much as we can. We do hardly any tracking as Spanish missionaries. Almost the only way we can get investigators is through referrals. I really want to help this area, but there is not much to do. We have limited miles on our car, so if we run out of things to do, we are done for the day. We can only visit the same people so many times.
So the average weight gain in this mission is 40 pounds. Someone gained 200 pounds once.
This area is so interesting. The members really take care of us. If you are walking around people will randomly pull over off the street and give you 5 or 10 dollars. Luckily, I drive so that does not happen hardly ever. Also, people will randomly just pay for what we are buying: Drinks, jamba juice, etc.
8/14
The branch only has like 30 members in all of Pocatello that speak Spanish, and only like 15 don't really speak much English.
In Sunday school I totally just made a fool of myself. It stinks. This is what happened.
What I heard....
where do you live?
Tucson, AZ
have you lived their your entire life?
only 10 years
blah blah blah?
........Yes?
What the Branch president actually said.
where do you live?
have you been a member all your life?
will you give me 10 dollars?
no wonder everyone laughed.
There have been only 3 people since I have been here that only speak Spanish. Everyone else, even some of our investigators mostly speak in English during the lesson, but there is always some reason why we need to be there (i.e. they have a husband that does not speak English well).
I just realized that people don't like it when you don't have an excuse. Everyone says "excuses are like butts, everyone has one." However, when someone asks you why you didn't do something, they are expecting an answer. When you answer, they say that you are giving an excuse. If you don't and just say what they would tell you anyway (which is "Well you obviously don't care about it enough, you are a horrible person."), then they freak out, get pretty mad, and they don't know how to respond. The best response to that question is, "I don't know." That is what would happen with Hermano Herman at the MTC when he would interview us about our goals.
Every missionary I have met thinks that the mission is half fun and half work. They say you can't work yourself to death. You have to have fun. Their common argument is that they are sure that Ammon and Aaron had fun on their 14 year mission. The thing is that when you are a true missionary, the "fun" they talk about comes from seeing people get baptized. What do you think brings Jesus his greatest happiness? "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man."
