Week 59: The Plot Thickens!‏

As the Garcia Family continues to prepare for Baptism, I keep worrying if I'm actually going to be there to see it or not. You see...the Changes are coming up on the 16th, and if I stay in the area I'm gonna get to see them make this covenant, but if not...

Man, it's quite the predicament.

Speaking of tough situations, we are floundering to find some new investigators here, mainly because we have been leaving the office at like 6 o'clock every day. I don't know what's happening! I feel like we don't have too much stuff to do, but for some reason it takes us forever and a day to actually get it done.

Who knows. All I know is that I'm having a blast here in Montufar with Elder Prestwich, that we're working hard and seeing a lot of fruits of our labor. So...who am I to complain?

This week has flown by faster than I could say "Quidditch." I've seen pretty much everything, from Doctor's appointments, to councils to pep-talks to baptisms...and also some "knock-your-socks-off-good lessons" that were completely guided by the spirit.

So many things to say, and I'm really not sure where to start.

But I think the very beginning is a very good place to start:

Sunday: we ended up running around a huge chunk of the Capital picking up investigators, trying to bring them to Sacrament meeting. From what everyone had told us the past week we were going to be looking at an incredible attendance rate (too bad August wasn't a "counting month" ;)), but that morning pretty much all of our investigators bailed on us. Minor and Veronica said that they were visiting relatives in Santa Fe and wouldn't be getting back until that evening, we couldn't get a hold of Erika, Bryan, Beverly or Krissi, and all of the less-active members weren't coming to the door when we knocked.

The only person who had really gotten to be consistent was Ana Victoria. It's really interesting to see how committed our young investigator has been. She has come to church on her own every Sunday for over a month now. No questions asked, she just rides the bus with her friends to the regular meetings. It's so funny, because Ana has been helping to fellowship Krissi and Beverly...and she's not even a member!

You know...yet (...keep reading).

So it was kind of hard in Church...because not very many people came. My companion and I sat down on the bench next to the Franco's, defeated. It feels like, no matter how much I do, I really can't seem to feel like I'm "on top of things."

Elder Walton leaned backwards from the bench in front of us after the sacrament. "Hey...aren't those your investigators?" he asked, his eyes flashing between mine and my companion.

"Who?" I asked, scanning the room for a familiar face.

And who would've guessed it, Erika and her two daughters were sitting in the back row, listening attentively to the talk about eternal families.

That, my friends was a miracle.

The rest of my week seemed to follow suit. Miracle by miracle I kept feeling better and better. I went to Doctor Aminibar's office on Tuesday to have my stitches removed, I am so happy to find out that I'm almost done with all of this crazy cyst-ness. I am so tired of telling the same story about what happened to my hand over and over and over again. It's time to move on to a new chapter here...

The only problem was that I asked the Doctor if I could start doing push ups now that I have the stitiches out. He promptly informed me that I would not be able to apply such intense pressure to my wrist for another 2 months!

How am I supposed to get super buff if I can't do push ups?

On Thursday I went on divisions with Elder Mann, my Zone Leader. It was really cool to talk to him, he's a great, humble missionary. He was in my first Zone when I entered the Mission Field, and as we were in an awesome lesson with Minor and Veronica I realized: It's been a year since I first went to San Juan, and La Florida...and so many things have happened since then! 

Even cooler was that it had also been a year to the date that day since I first met Elder Mann...and now we were doing divisions telling each other how that year was for us.

We had two very spiritual lessons, and I learned a lot from my good friend.

But, all in all the crowning moment of this week came at the very end, this morning in fact when Ana Victoria was baptized. It was the first baptismal service that I really had to prepare myself, because my companions would usually do it for me, but it turned out very well. We saw a lot of support from some member families and Ana even brought a few nonmember friends to the service! Sitting there that morning I felt refreshed and happy, ready to go out and keep finding and keep helping people to come unto Christ.

Minor and Veronica came to the service, a little bit early before everyone else, and it was really funny because Minor told us that "If Ana doesn't show up, you can baptize me instead right now!" He has been so well prepared! I sure hope I get to be there when he and his wife are baptized (on the 27th).

We'll see....

-Elder Monson

   

Week 58: To Infinity...and Beyond!‏

Right now, I feel like an obscure metaphor, so bear with me:

I'm not sure if you remember the part in the movie Toy Story 2 where the gang (consisting of Hamm, Mr. Potato Head, Slinky and a Brainwashed Buzz Lightyear) has all reached the apartment building where Woody is being held. After climbing through the ventilation system, they reach the elevator shaft, which Buzz begins to climb the wall with magnets and his companions dangling in tow. Using his "Anti-Gravity Turbo" he decides to let go of the wall where, for pure happenstance, the Elevator is rising only a few feet below and lifts them to the penthouse apartment.

Under the illusion that his gadgets and boosters are the reason for their ascent, Buzz Lightyear extends one hand towards the heavens and shouts, "To Infinity and beyond."

And in a weird way...I feel a little bit like that.

Mainly because Elder Prestwich and I are seeing so many fruits and so much progress up this elevator shaft of an area, like we're rocketing up at light speed....when really the Lord is who has been lifting us up so high, and that he is working more miracles here than I ever could.

...So it's like that, if you catch my drift.

What really made me feel that way were the two incredible families that we have been teaching.

We found them on the 14th of this month, knocking on doors by our house in Zone 8, following our new philosophy of "look until you find someone." We taught a quick lesson that day to Minor and his wife, Veronica a relatively young family with two little kids, Steve and Brittany (those are some super American names [another side note: "Super" is also an acceptable adjective in Spanish...so if I keep saying that word a lot....it's not my fault]). We taught for a little bit about the Restoration and the first vision and they seemed rather receptive. Setting up for an appointment the next Tuesday, we both left the lesson feeling surprised about how great the visit really had been.

During the next appointment, we had our socks knocked off.

They had read all of the pamphlet that we had left with them, and had discussed it as a family, how "it made so much sense that there was an apostasy" and they basically repeated the story of how Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon back to us.

Simply....appalling...you don't find people like them every day.

We invited them to be baptized on the 13th of September, and they accepted.

On Sunday, they came to church on their own and left their kids in the Primary as they went to the Gospel Principles class. They said that they loved how focused on the family our church is, and that the idea of being able to be sealed in the Temple for time and all eternity was a new goal that they had.

I mean...really?!? I don't even feel like I'm doing anything, that the spirit of the Lord is working so hard through them that nobody can even stop to count the blessings.

They already gave us a referral, Veronica’s sister, Erika and her three kids; and wouldn’t you know it, they too are completely golden. One of the children’s names is Bryan, he’s a 20 year old college student that seems to have a much higher spiritual scale than most people.

He told us in the 2^nd visit that he had “read half of the yellow book” that we had left with him. “You mean the one about the restoration?” I responded, thinking that he was talking about the Lesson 1 pamphlet.

“No, it’s a different one…what’s it called again? I think its Gospel Principles or something like that.”

Our jaws both hit the floor. The day before he had sat down for three hours and studied the basic doctrine of the church…and he could repeat it back to us like an answering machine.

Then, a little bit later in the lesson, we talked about eternal families, and Minor said, “It feels good to know that God has a plan for my family….I really want us to be together forever…like what Buzz Lightyear says ‘Al Infinito….y mas Alía!’” 

The member who came with us, Hermano Castro, told us after the lesson, “They were so well prepared…it was like teaching members!”

And he was right.

So even though August was a little bit slow…September is going to be a fantastic month, with 7 baptisms on the schedule.

Among other exciting events, we also had a member of the 70, Elder Kevin R. Duncan, come and do a Zone Conference with us on Tuesday. I learned a lot about how to work more efficiently and how I need to have more faith to find new investigators.

He said that it is possible that we could all have 40 progressing investigators in one week.

And I was all like…whoa; I only have like, 7 and am struggling to maintain all of their spiritual flames, now imagine 40.

Yikes.

But for the moment we’re doing great, we got to go and play “Spike Ball” with our Mission President in Don Justo this morning…even though I was terrible at it I had a lot of fun!

Hooray for P-Day.

Love you all and I’ll talk to you later!

Week 57: Revenge of the Cyst‏

I never thought a trip to the Hospital could teach me three important lessons in 2 short hours.

1. Hospital gowns are not fun

2. Anesthesia is pretty trippy

3. If you trust in the Lord, you can literally make it through anything.

But I think I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself. First of all, an answer to a question: Why on earth did I have to go to the hospital?

For those of you who didn't know, from the second week that I came to the mission offices to be Financial Secretary, a ganglion cyst started taking root on my left wrist.

A cyst is a swelling on top of a joint or the covering of a tendon. It is a pocket of fluids that forms itself into a ball, they may appear as hard and thick or thin and spongy. They aren't so fun to have.

But, as long as I didn't apply as much pressure on my left hand, I could manage day-to-day tasks without any serious pain.

So everything for the past 5 months has been pretty mellow as far as wrist pains go.

Until last week, when I finally felt motivated enough to try to do daily exercise again. The primary reason for such activism was due to the ever-irking comments from just about everyone about how thin I am at the present time. It's the omnipresent phrase that has haunted me even from the beginning of the mission: "Wow, you are really skinny...are you eating well?"

Yes, I am eating well.

So I took the question up to my Mission President, searching for his revelation, "President, what do I have to do to get more of...you know...more mass?" I asked him.

He responded with an intense push-up routine that he was ready with on the spot. 240 reps and a rather punishing set of things to do to start bulking up.

Meh, why not?

"Are you okay to push-ups?" he asked.

"Well...I do have a cyst in my hand and it complicates things a bit on that front." I answered

"Let's take care of that then!" President responded, and ten minutes later, I had a surgery planned for Thursday the 21st, where they were going to go in and cut the Cyst out.

Great.

I spent a lot of time dreading the date, counting down the hours until doomsday. And on Wednesday afternoon when we went out to go and visit people I couldn't get my mind off of the whole ordeal.

That night, the executive secretaries, Elder Walton and Elder Coronado had to stay over at the White House because they were going to take a Sister Missionary to the airport the following morning. It was a great opportunity to ask for a Preisthood Blessing.

Then the next morning, the Trapnells picked us up at 6:30 to go to the Herrera Hospital for the operation.

From there the rest was kind of a blur.

They checked me in, took me to another room and had me change into a super-awkward, drafty hospital gown (all of the clothes were made for Guatemalans 1/2 my height, so the gown was more like a skirt on me. Resolution: I am never going to try wearing a kilt) and put me in a wheelchair and rolled me into the operation room.

There, I got into the bed and got ready to be put under anesthetics.

All the doctors at the hospital were really nice...and almost all of them knew English and had studied in the states. So I felt like I was in good hands.

"Okay man! Just let go now, just go to sleep and everything will be okay!" I heard from the anesthesiologist.

The next thing I knew I was lying in a bed in a different room.

On my left arm I had a wrap and a brace on.

And it hurt really bad.

Once I told the nurses that "Hey, eso me duele mucho! " They were really quick about putting a pain killer in my IV.

One of the nurses came up and started talking to me. One of her friends said that "you can call her your 'sister' because she goes to  your church!" She talked to me about her family and how she too had served a mission. I felt like I was being watched over, I felt good and protected.  

The next thing I knew I was in the Trapnell's car with Elder Prestwich in the seat next to me and we were on our way to Dairy Queen to go and get Bilzzards (we had 2x1 coupons) and lunch. And for the rest of the day I just went home and went to sleep.

I was pretty doped up.

But the greatest blessing in the whole world was the support that I recieved that evening from many of my friends here in the mission: I received a call from a lot of people wanting to see how I was doing. Sister Caffaro sent me a message and President called as well.

I am so blessed to have such a great support system so far away from home.

At the end of the day I learned a lot of things during my surgery. But the biggest lesson was definitely how to trust in the Lord, and also in other people, allow them to guide us and help us through difficult times and everything will work out just fine.

Even after surgery I can still be "awesome"

The building where I "work"

6th floor Tower II Office 606

My office space

Preparation Day Bowling!