I mean that. You know how he left The Office after so many years? I feel like that kind of. I´ve worked here for a little while, and now, I feel like I´m leaving behind a little bit of my life. Dunno.
Really, I´m actually very happy. I no longer have to worry about the offices ni nada así, and I´m really excited that finally I can focus all of my labors on the work.
I recently talked with my good ol´ buddy Elder Lundberg! I haven´t seen him for a little while.
He talked to me a lot about training. In fact, he talked to me a lot about the difficulties of training.
The thing that made me happier than almost any other thing in the whole world was that he was having the EXACT SAME DIFFICULTIES that I had.
Many things were going on in training a new missionary, and the hardest part was that I just didn´t know what to do. And literally, for the first time in all of the time I´ve known this Elder, he told me he said he didn´t know what else to do.
I felt as though I had finally been completely relieved of all the problems I´ve had.
I mean, don´t get me wrong, I loved my companion. He and I got along pretty well. But I just couldn´t get him to work. The only motivation he has is to make himself look good. Everyone wants to look good, of course. Don´t get me wrong, I´d like that too. But if you work for that, you won´t receive it. At least, not in the amount that you´d like it.
But more than really anything else, I really appreciated that he said that he felt like he was a bad trainer.
Elder Lundberg knows a ton of stuff that I just cannot even begin to answer. I don´t know how he does it, but he´s always got an answer for everything. Just any question, and he pulls out an answer that just seems completely and totally right.
The fact that he says he feels like a bad trainer means that I don´t actually have to feel bad if my trainee or if I cannot do the best, or if we had fights or anything like that. Quite literally, it was normal. Every single moment of my training was normal.
Now, more than that, I had the chance to talk with Elder Guzman again. You guys remember him? The old secretary that I replaced?
HE´S THE NEW ASSISTANT!
So I am talking to him again! Really cool actually. I´m super glad that I get to talk with him, because he´s super fun to be around, and he and I have the same mindset (most of the time).
He and I talked a little while about how things were going in the ward, and he straight up told me:
Cuando salí de las oficinas, estuve bien feliz, porque ya no tuve que preocuparme de nada de las oficinas, y ya no tuve que hacer nada menos trabajar.
When I left the offices, I was really happy, because I didn´t have to worry about anything in the offices any more, and I didn´t have to do anything anymore except work.
I am super happy as well. That just makes me super glad that finally I will be able to put all of my training from the assistants to good use. I will finally be able to get all of my ducks in a row.
I guess you could say that I´m just happy because I understand now what it means to be a missionary. I understand much better why I´m here in this mission. There is no other place I would rather be than here. I honestly cannot begin to describe the immense amounts of benefits that I´ve received already.
More than anything else, I don´t ever want to think about anything else besides how to do better in the work.
I enjoyed in Postal that I could learn how to help people better, and that I was able to see cause and effect.
Here, I really can´t do that because I can´t put in practice what I´m learning all that much, as I have very little time to work.
But now I can just go hardcore and try just everything. I mean, now, every day, instead of thinking:
What more can I do to make the offices better?
I will think:
What more can I do to make this ward better?
I think, if nothing else, I´m just happy that I´m going to be going to a new place, starting over. Beginning again. I´m going to be able to enter a new sector, learn everything, and then just do all I can to make sure that that sector is pushed to the limit.
This week, we really didn´t work all that much, because we lost last Monday and Tuesday due to transfers. However, this week, we will work completely, and I think I am going to start implementing what I know now to just see what happens.
Alright, I´m done ranting. Now I´ll just talk about the guy in the picture.
This man is named Brother C.
Brother C was baptized around 12 years ago. He and his wife were baptized the same day, and he was active for around 2 years. However, when he ran into problems with his wife, he picked up drinking, and went inactive.
He stopped going to church, split up with his wife, and stopped really doing anything in the church. For 10 years, he was constantly selling at his fruit stand, trying to make a humble living to pay for his rent and for his next day´s wares.
One day, after 10 years of waiting, Me, and 2 Hermanos from the ward went to go visit him.
I had never seen nor heard him before that day, but the instant I saw him, I thought he would just back out and say that he wanted to listen another day. I talked with him about his life, about how he was, and what he enjoyed doing. I spoke with him about selling his fruit, and what exactly he has to do every day.
After speaking for about 15 minutes with him, I asked a question:
"Are you baptized?"
"I am. I was baptized 12 years ago."
"And so you have a Book of Mormon right?"
"Hmmm.... I think so. I would have to look, but I think I do."
"How about we pass by on Tuesday and read it with you? How´s that?"
He pondered. I was geniunely surprised at the mere fact that he pondered. Normally, people just threw up the walls as soon as possible to avoid the possibility of an appointment with us. He thought for about a minute, and then, in a voice I cannot forget for the rest of my life:
"Fijate que sí." (You know what? Yes.)
From that point on, we worked with him for around 2 weeks.
Finally, one day, we came to him and talked to him about General Conference, and we convinced him to come.
He showed up to the last session on Sunday. The last session in all of general conference.
Since that day forward, he has not missed a single Sunday, not missed a single day without reading the Book of Mormon, and he has not failed in being in every single appointment without a single excuse.
Brother C is just such a great guy.
This is why I´m so glad I´m here. I get to meet people like this! Great people that just honestly want to be better. Great people that just love you even if you´re a weird white guy.
He´s a good man, and I´m really happy I got to meet him here.
I will try to get more photos of other members and investigators as I go about my appointments this week.
Okay, well, that´s it for this week. I´m outta here.
Oh, and a question for all of you:
Does Cain live?
Read the Bible and PoGP about Cain, and then try to decide if he still lives or not... I don´t believe it, but I just want to know if I´m the only one who doesn´t believe it.
Okay, yeah, I´m good now.
BAI!
Elder Carter
