week 12: First Transfer Complete

Week 12, 6th week of first transfer

October 27, 2019

It's crazy to think about how my first transfer is already finished. I remember my first week here, I didn't understand anything anybody said and I couldn't speak well or teach lessons or do anything really. In just 6 weeks I've learned soooo much about the language and about being a missionary.

This week was good. The weather was much better, it was like in the 80's all week which was soooo nice to have a break from the burning hot sun every day. We did a lot of door knocking this week because lots of our appointments fell through but that led to finding some interesting people. We knocked on one door and this old man came to the door and we tried to teach him but it ended up that he just talked about the bible and his life for an hour and we would try to cut in and we'd say like two lines and then he would speak for more time. It was kind of funny. I almost fell asleep because I couldn't understand everything and he was talking fast and just blabbing on and on and saying the same thing about the bible and how great it was. So that wasn't really the best lesson but we tried. At another house we knocked on the door and then the door opened and a dog ran out and it peed on my companion's leg, which for me was really funny but for him wasn't. And then the police pulled up and knocked on the door next to us and one of them had his hand on his gun and he's like, "have you guys knocked on this door?" and we hadn't so we were like, "no." Luckily nothing happened because the people there weren't home but it was kind of scary because we could've knocked on that door and had something go wrong.

This Sunday was kind of sad because we only had one friend come to church this week, which stinks because the week before we had 5 people so to go from 5 to 1 is kind of lame. But the one who came has been coming for like 6 times now so that's good! three times with us and before she was being taught by other elders. But she has lots of doubts. Her name is Jaqueline. She has lots of doubts about prophets so we've been trying to help her with that. 

Also, for lunch we usually eat with members but when we can't they give us money so we can go buy lunch instead, so we've been going to restaurants and buying lunch and we were sick of having the same thing every day. So on saturday we decided to make burgers but also Elder Roderiguez made this mess with bacon and cheese (see photo) so we but that on the burgers and covered it with BBQ sauce. It was pretty great. Probably not going to eat it again because it's not very healthy but it was a good change from the same rice and beans and steak we've been eating every day. 

A cool experience we had, was last Pday, after Pday ended we had family home evening at a members house with a bunch of the youth and a few of the youth leaders and we shared a video of a Jeffrey R Holland talk about the atonement of Jesus Christ and it was a really good video...it talks about how at some point in our life we are all going to feel a little of the pain that Jesus Christ felt but we can find comfort in knowing that He's felt ALL of it. It was just a really spiritual experience. 

So this is the end of transfer 1. We get 2 more missionaries in our house this week so next week that'll be interesting to share about.

Let me end with Things that I hate and things that I like:

Things that I hate: Stray dogs at night. They are always laying in the shadows waiting to jump out and scare me. They don't usually do anything except bark (usually, I had one try to bite me) but they always make me jump.

Things that I like: There's this family of recent converts, and whenever we visit them they have snacks for us. The other day they had this thing called Romeo and Juliet, which is cheese with this thick jam stuff called goiabada. I had tried it before the mission and I didn't like it, but now I love it. It's delicious, highly recommended it.

Spiritual thought: This week I listened to a devotional by Elder Holland about lot's wife and looking back at the past. If you don't know the story of lot's wife, she was turned into a pillar of salt because she looked back as they were fleeing the city that God was destroying. He talked about how her sin wasn't looking back, but wanting to go back. We can learn from the past, but keep working hard in the present. Sometimes when things are hard, we wish we could go back, but we need to find hope in Christ and continue pressing forward.

--Elder Olson

Elder Rodriguez making the cheesy bacon burger topping