Family,
Here's a journal entry
from possibly the most productive day I have had in this area, when it comes to
mission work:
"3 Julio, 2014.
Jueves. Universidad II
It's suprising to me
how much I can get done when we have everything p`lanned out well. I'm
not lying when I say we were in a rush all day long, practically running from
cita to cita.
We started off the
morning early, with excersizes and a big breakfast, prepared by norma and
Jessenia the day before (recent converts). After, at 8 am, we went over to Julia Chabarria's house to
give service. I'm not kidding, we washed clothes for 3 hours straight, with her
giving the orders every step of the way. I was hunched over the big water
bucket for so long, that my back was in strong pain all day long after.
At 11:30 we arrived back at the house. There was
no time to study, or even shower, because we had a cita with Efain at 12 on the
dot. All we did was shave and put on extra deodorant. Efrain ended up
presenting us to his friend, Eli. They study together at La San Simon, a state
college here. We taught lesson 1 and she weemed to accept. Sunday she says she
will come too. After we help her and Efrain with some upper level english class
homework, then flew to lunch.
After shoveling down
our food quickly, we went to Ghersons house, cita fija. He wasn't able to talk,
so we went to Doña maria, who wasn't in her tienda either. After we went to
Juana Espinoza, but she just asked us to come back tomorrow for a cita.
Finally, we arrive at
Kevin and Arnolds house. Their Aunt ends up coming and greeting us, and invites
us in. We end up teaching her the plan of salvacion. She has to sell
chicharron on Sundays in order to keep her family afloat, but she said she will
do her bext to come on Sunday, maybe for one hour. We will go pick her up also
Sunday Morning.
After, we left
Amada's, Volando over to heidys. We were late to a cita fija we had with her.
She has had tons of doubts about the church, eve though shes beena member for
more than 10 years. They've mainly come for one reason: While going through a
rough time a few weeks ago, her firend invitied her to his church, Crist Viene
(yeah, the one created by an ex member who claims the same exact story as Jose
Smith). She said she had a beautiful experience there, and really felt
something. SO, we are working a ton with her on her testimony so she can
resolve her doubts. She is reading the LdM ad praying often, so I know
she will be able to rerain her testimony, and be reactivated. SHe promised us
she will come on Sunday also.
From Heidy's, we
booked it over to Zacharias's house, another set appointment. With him,
we have to be super direct. He has already attended 2 times, so this is what I
told him: 'Zacarias, your sister in law Magda is getting baptized on the 12th
of July. If you attend the sunday, and have your answer, you too can be
baptized with her on that day.' That really made him aware of the
situation, althought he didn't accept nor reject the invitation. But, we
will see if he attends on Sunday.
Next stop we hit
Assis, but he wasn't home. We ended up visiting Julio Cesar, a less active
youth of 23 years old. We are getting to know his whole family, who aren't
members yet except his litter sister who's also less active. He recently
quit his job, which was on Sundays, so he can focus better on studies and try
to come back to church. We taught him about the santa cena and explained
to him he could be the example for his whole family to get baptized.
Finally we made it to
dinner, pounded the food, and filled out a progress report for ward counsil. We
have a lot of tasks we need from the members, but they are really willing to
help. We gave our schpiel, and then turned the time over to the other
companionship in the ward. Realizing I wouldn't be able to help them out with
their area, my eyes became very heavy, and I eventually passed out for a few
seconds. Luckily I don't think anyone noticed.
5 lessons, 1 new
person, service. Today was very productive, I'd say.
Elder Potts III
Bolivia Cochabamba
Mission