Monday, February 17, 2014

6 Months, 1/4, 25%


My lovely new man bag


My Vday present from Elder Rodriguez. haha

Hola familia, 

Well another week has come and gone, and that means 6 months! Crazy. Well... in some ways it feels like I have been here forever and I can't even remember what home is like, but in others it seems like I just got here. But hey 3 more times and I am home. So hopefully the hardest part of the mission is over, the first 6 months. Now just let the time fly by POR FAVOR!!! haha no Lots of times I find myself missing home, or not enjoying the mission like everybody else says they do. But you are never going to enjoy the mission until you forget yourself. It really is such a great experience, you are never going to grow as much anywhere than you do in the mission. But ahh its hard. Lots of people will say they are just loving the mission and everything is just great but I'll say it how it is . . rough. But hey think about the story of President Hinckley when he was in the mission, he was frustrated and about to give up, when his dad told him to forget himself and go to work. But hey now the first 6 months is behind me, I know Spanish pretty well, I'm pretty experienced, I just need to forget myself and work harder every week. 

We had a really great week! It started off with a good district meeting with our new DL Elder Jenson. He reminds me soo much of Shawn Buxton. But we talked about this exactly, that the mission is hard, but we can't give up. Like it says in Mark 10 29-30 we will receive 100 times more when we return, and eternal life in the world to come. (I hope its the same in English haha) We taught 32 lessons this week. Well on our way to the 40-60. But hey that is pretty good to me, every week we are doing better. We will have baptisms this Sunday and the next one. 

We had divisions this week, and the companion of Elder Jenson (E Jiminez) came here and worked with me for the day. He is from the Dominican Republic, and usually those are the missionaries that you don't want to be your companion, but it was pretty good. 

We had a zone activity Wednesday to clean the church in Centenario. haha it was pretty funny because I'm pretty sure we left it worse than we found it. We tried, but it is just so darn hard to clean things here. Everything is just permastained. haha We were wondering why the window cleaner wasn't working very good, come to find out it was some toilet grease something. woops, ehh you don't really need to see out of the windows anyways, its just cement. haha. So that was a fun experience. 

We had some good debates with some Jehovah's witnesses this week. My blood usually gets to about 211 degrees talking to them. One lady said "I have read the bible many times what could you possibly teach me." She said "I am in the one and only true church and you aren't". ahh it makes me so mad how blind she is. So I said "you have read the bible that many times and you still don't even know who your God is. . its not Jehovah that would be Jesus Christ." She didn't like that. haha. I try not to have the spirit of contention because the spirit will definitely not be there , but ah! some people. . But overall the teaching and the investigators are going really good.

Valentines was pretty good. (Dia de amor y amistad that is) Everyone had their lovers, families, and friends. . . ya I had my companion. woo. My valentines lunch was giant meatballs with egg in the middle, and black beans. mmm. straight protein. haha Dessert was mango with a pound of chile on it. Pretty gross actually. haha But just talking to members, it makes me realize how many things I have learned in the mission. tons. And still so much to learn. The Eldas told us to come over and they gave us hot cocoa, bakery goodness, and meranguis (no idea how to spell it) 

Sunday was a good day, a bit different. We left for church and ended up being about half hour late because of the crazy traffic. Some bus tipped over or something so sacrament didn't even start until 12:30ish because nobody was there. haha But it was good, we taught gospel principles again, and priesthood. Then we headed straight with some hermanas to their house to eat. It was a blood red soup of meat veggies and corn that is really good but potent for white shirts. The hermana gave us towels to wrap around our necks. Bocanegra got it all over him, and spilled his coke, and I walked out spotless. Ah I felt pretty good about myself. We had a meeting with our stake and our mission president. He talked about how they need to help us more especially with this crazy numbers for this year. 

Today was a good day. This morning we cleaned the house, bought food and lots of fruit from the tianguis (lots of banana papaya apples and grapefruit) Then we headed to downtown to Buenavista. The giant mall there. I bought myself a lovely shoulder bag. Its a nice bag but I'm not looking forward to the back pain. haha. So mother your gonna need to pay off my credit card gracias! :) (with my account of course) And that's about it for the day. It is getting SO hot here now, not loving it. But it could be worse. 

Sounds good at home. (whats home??) Dad I'm glad you got out of the frozen tundra of Maryland, that didn't sound like fun. Mother nice hair, but you know me I'll be honest I like your long hair better. But it does look much better than I was thinking from how you explained it. haha. And why no car decision? So Mom and Dad will probably be in Tahiti next week, that's cool, I'll be here. The Olympics sound fun, I saw bits and pieces from the tvs in the mall today. agh I miss snow. haha

Well family love you all soo much. Have a great week, and always put the Lord first.

Love your favorite missionary ever Elder Elgan


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