This week was a really tough week. No new investigators that let us go further than 1 or 2 lessons, and a lot of appointments that fell though. No investigators, and therefore none in church.
However, there are some cool things that happened, and I will explain them the best I can and with utmost honesty. As they say here in Tijuana almost ALL THE TIME: PA' QUE LES VOY A ECHAR MENTIRAS" (why would I lie to you guys? It's something they say when they jsut don't want to listen to us and then they start throwing a bunch of stupid excuses such as: I REALLY HAVE NO IDEA WHEN I'M EVER HOME IT'S A GOSH DARNED MIRACLE THAT I YOU GUYS FOUND ME HERE IN MY HOUSE WHERE I LIVE.)
Okay, so, here we go:
1.) I had my first experience of completely and totally forgetting a word in English! I was talking with a family about English because I was helping their son with his English homework (JUST GRADING IT, THANK YOU), and then I started talking about how I hate the kitchen in Spanish because I never know how to call the cupboards, because there are like 3 words that all work and I don't know which one is most correct or natural. Anyway, so I started to say I hated it, and they asked me what that word was in English, and I said cabinet and it felt terrible.
I was like, that word is NOT the word I used in my house. What did I say?
I thought and thought and thought and I just couldn't think about the word. I had forgotten the word CUPBOARD. I had no idea what the word was, and I ended up asking Elder S, who then told me it was cupboard. There we go. More words will be forgotten soon. Please forgive my terrible English.
2.) WE SAW A DOG GET HIT BY A CAR! It was the worst experience ever! I was so sad! We were just talking a little bit about how the mission was because we were really discouraged and we sat down and talked for a bit, and we just hear this loud THUNK. And then we look down the road and see this dog rolling super quickly underneath this car, and we hear the car hitting it more and it just keeps rolling. Holy crud it was HORRIBLE. The dog flipped out from under the car, thankfully still in one piece and skidded around 5 more feet until it stopped and went into convulsions, and then after that it tried to stand.
This was the saddest part of the whole thing. It couldn't stand up. His back legs had both been broken. The dog tried to get out of the way of other cars, but luckily the other car just kinda went around it. The dog struggled through the pain and managed to stand up and kind of drag itself to the side of the road where it collapsed and started whining. There was a really nice guy that showed up and picked him up and took him home. It was the saddest experience of my life almost. Just SO STINKING SAD! Poor guy.
3.) There was an Elder that recently got back from his mission in the stake. In fact, he recently got back from the EL SALVADOR SAN SALVADOR MISSION. It was nuts! His name is Elder T. I had already sent an email to Tom to see if he had talked to him, and he said that he had seen him around, but not actually talked to him. So, I stopped this guy on Sunday because he came to the ward, and I talked to him really briefly. He told me that he had met and talked to an Elder Sant, and that he was just crazy. He also told me that he had good Spanish (probably not better than mine, but who knows?). I really didn't get much time to talk with him, but it was cool to talk to someone who just 3 weeks ago was with Elder Sant in the mission! Pretty boss.
4.) Elder S leaves our house! He's so awesome! I'm going to miss that guy. However, I will be living with him when I get back, and I know I'll see him after at least. Took my last picture with him. Great guy.
Pretty much everything else is just kinda normal. Knocking on doors, talking to people, getting rejected, and talking with Elder E and Elder S and Elder De La T. However, I will talk a little about what happened at the end of this week.
So, I just kinda hit a low point a few days ago where I just felt as though I was just wasting my time, and the Lord's time. I mean, when I went with one of the Zone Leaders, we seemed to accomplish a lot, and when he left, I just didn't know how to do what he showed me. It was jsut weird.
Anyway, I got really discouraged, because everything that the Zone Leader and I had set up fell through, and it's been really tough on me.
I mean, I've had a lot of success in this area in terms of self progress and outward physical success like baptisms, but I've also had a lot of rejection in this area.
Sure, I get rejected a lot,and sure, it's expected, but I've just gotten super discouraged because of how many times it's been happening.
It got to a point where I called the Zone Leaders and started talking with them, and they told me a few things that I needed.
You see, many times, they just tell us FIND MORE. Or like, GET MORE PEOPLE TO HELP YOU IN LESSONS, and then I just get frustrated because they don't actually tell me how I'm supposed to do it. However, this time, i forced them to help me out. They told me things that were specific and helpful, and after finding all of that out, I finally got the confidence to start just going crazy again. I think I'm going to be able to do a lot better this next transfer.
So, that's my schpeel for this week. Really long. I'm such a sinner for being here 5 minutes over the hour. But you guys need this stuff right?
I realized that I have forgotten my PMG quotes, but I'm too lazy to put them because it requires a lot of work. I'm just going to nix it. Sorry. I know, everyone was always looking forward to it I'm sure.
Okay, um.... well, I hope everyone has a good week. We've got a lot of work ahead of us, but we're gonna get it done!
See you all later. Thanks for the prayers and other types of support. Love you all.
Elder Carter
