Week 57

So I finally got to play rugby. After years of thinking I’d be good at it and wanting to play and watching games, I finally did. Elder Wolfgramm had scholarship offers to play rugby after high school and his comp Elder McClelland has a ball and several other kids had played before the mission, so last Monday we played. I love it. I’m seriously kinda depressed I didn’t live in Utah or Cali or any other state than Montana growing up so I could have played. It wasn’t a full contact game or even have the right number or players, but after Wolfgramm helped explain the rules and I had played for a little bit, I seemed to get the hang of it and played well. He said I was a natural and would have been really good. Dang it. I did "accidently" tackle Elder McClelland once which lead to both of us getting busted up and bloody and covered in red dirt. That stuff is a pain.

We played on Monday at a zone bbq thing in Capiata. I’m glad I showed up an hour late since the food wasn’t even close to being ready on time. They bought a bunch of hamburgers and sausages but they didn’t have a grill, so they made a makeshift one that took forever. Poor Elder Lubomirsky spent the whole day trying to cook these things. He eventually did, and they were good, but man it was a process.

After we ate, we played some volleyball and while I’m not my dad, I feel like I hold my own out there. After that, we visited Belen, our investigator, to keep her on track for her baptism on Friday. She is ready. So pumped. And then we had an FHE with the bishop’s family that I set up.

I made a bunch of friends playing soccer with the youth Wednesday nights with Elder Stopper, but they all live in the hermanas half of Anahi 1. And they have been ducking the hermanas, so I cornered them last week and made them commit to this FHE. So they came, and we ate empanadas and cake and watched the restauration video. It went really well -- except one of the youths that came is very immature and kept distracting everybody the whole night. Besides that it was a great night.

Tuesday was an interesting day. We had some really great visits with Belen and with an investigator named Irma, but in the middle was this one random contact that talked to us like 3 hours and we could never get a word in to share our beliefs or to try and escape. Finally some friends and his wife came over, and we were able to teach a lesson. There was one cool lady there. She teaches philosophy at a Lutheran school in San Antonio and has lived and taught all over the U.S. She was so cool. She kept correcting us on our Spanish and in this cool sassy Mexican English action said it’s "what I do". Anyway, we felt inspired to give her a Book of Mormon, so maybe the visit will turn out to be good.

Then that night we saw Irma, who was a contact the week before, and was straight up hard core Catholic. Well, we came back as a follow-up, and she had completely changed and was willing to keep all our commitments and just changed. We had a sweet plan of salvation lesson with her where we talked about eternal families and her dead husband. So sick. Then on Wednesday night we started a division. So I changed the location of the meeting to a supermarket called Superseis instead of a supermarket called Stock because I knew how to get to Superseis but not to Stock. Well, it was late and rainy, so we jumped on a bus I didn’t know and asked if he went to Superseis in San Lorenzo. He said yes. Well, a good while later, I saw a Nike store that I knew was not anywhere near where we needed to be. So we jumped off at...Stock. Yup. Haha. So then we had to walk a ton to get there and meet up.

After that, the division was good. I went with Elder Moncada, a new guy from Chicago but his parents are from Guatamala so he speaks perfect Spanish. He’s a really cool dude. He also convinced me to try to go to Northwestern for grad school as Chicago is a sick city. We had a really good time, including finding an awesome lady. So like all divisions, your plans fall through. Well, I began running through all the names I knew around there. None of them worked out. I literally was on the last name of my list -- a person I’d never met. But we went, and she is awesome. She gave the most amazing prayer -- thanking the lord for bringing us back into her life and sharing our message with her and her family. I’ve never been so excited after a first visit.

We ended the division, and then on Friday we had the baptism of Belen. She is the most prepared 11-year-old I’ve ever met. She is the niece of a less active member here in our ward that moved here from the country for school so we began teaching her, and she was pure gold. It was a joy teaching her. And it was really cool that her cousin was able to baptize her. For once, nothing went wrong during a baptism; although, I did have to clean the dirtiest baptism font I’ve ever seen and I’m sure I got some weird disease that will make my feet fall off.

Then this weekend was stake conference, which went well. That was basically it for the week. Baptism weeks are always hectic, and a stake conference weekend makes it even more so. This next week should be way more relaxed, and I’m excited. I love you guys and wish the best for all of you. Take care.

 

Elder Frost