Monday, March 28, 2011

11: San Jorge 2

¡Bueno Bueno!

Entonces este semana ha sido muy ocupado. Primero yo no entiendo mi compañero porque my compañero habla muy rapído.  Supongo que yo necisito esperar.  Pero, realmente estoy aprendieno la idioma muy rapído.  [I have been very busy this week.  First, I can't understand my companion because he speaks too fast.  I guess I just need to wait.  But really I am learning the language very quickly.] At church, and with most people, if I concentrate I can understand them well.  I just need to memorize more words I suppose.  There are times when I can follow along almost perfectly, and others when I am totally lost.

So this week has kind of been the week of intercambios [exchanges] for me.  On Tuesday we taught Noé and Jessica.  They've been progressing for a while, and they finally committed to baptism on Sunday.  Wednesday was intercambios [exchange] day, and after our district meeting we had an hour before lunch...not enough time to go up to San Jorge and back, so we split up with Elder Stone and Elder García and taught in their area.  I went with Elder García, and it was really cool, because I understood what was going on...and he didn´t even speak English.  We also contacted some people, and it was sweet because I actually contacted them.  I´ve had pretty good success contacting these first two weeks.  Then we had lunch at the house of Hermana Fernandez, a member.  She is such a good cook.  I swear, she makes the best food ever.  I had stuffed peppers, chicken, potatoes, stuff I don´t actually know what it was, and all kinds of rice.  It is so good.

Then we had our actual intercambios [exchanges], and I went to San Jorge with Elder Stone.  He follows the system really well, so I learned from that. 

On Thursday the district leaders had a meeting with the president, so I got put on exchanges again.  This time I went with Elder Koller (the compañero de Elder Vasquez, the other district leader in our zone from Costa Rica).  Elder Koller is from one of those small, obscure Mormon towns in Utah and has been here for about 6 months.  He just got transferred to his area, so he had no idea where anyone lived, so we went contacting.  His area is way rich.  They even have doorbells, which is way weird.  I'm used to just knocking on a gate (if there is one) and saying "Buenos Días" or something.  So it was a lot different.  We found a mujer [woman] named Abigail, we taught her the first lesson, and she seemed very positive.  Then we went back to the bus station to pick up our companions, except not me.  Elder Delgado (zone leader) had to interview Noé y Jessica for baptism, and so I went with Elder Brown (other zone leader) to his area...Clear Springs.  The springs aren´t clean there.  There's a nasty off white stream that runs through the street.  It´s not clean. 

Elder Brown has so much energy.  I went contacting with him.  I've probably learned more from him in that half a day than from anyone else.  He's good and he's a lot of fun.  I also had atol at some member's house, which is a hot drink made from corn and cinnamon, and you dip bread in it.  It was good, but they don´t actually use purified water, so I just had to say a prayer, cross my fingers, and eat it.  That seems to happen a lot here.  Then, I slept over at Elder Brown's.  He lives in a new house that's basically paradise.  It is so sweet.  And they also have three turtles in their garden...which is awesome.  They swim around in the uh...place where you wash clothes (no sé [I don't know] what it's called).

So I learned a lot.  And the next day I went on intercambios [exchanges] with Elder García again because of...well, I don't remember why, but there was a good reason.  Elder García kept trying to say play in English...but he couldn't say it...it kept coming out as plain.  At first I told him that we don't say that as missionaries...only after our missions, but after a while, I realized that no one could actually understand him, not even me, and I speak English, so I gave up.  He is way funny.  We get along really well, and we always ask each other words in the other's language...then that person acts it out (because we can't explain it in the other person's language), and it's a joke. 

Saturday, I had another intercambio [exchange] with Elder Medina so Elder Gonzalez could interview his investigator family for baptism.  Elder Medina's been here for 12 months and is cool.  Again, I kind of took over contacting.  I talked to some guy named Christian, who was walking his road bike and we talked for a while.  He was a triathlete.  It was cool because we talked about that for a while, then talked about the gospel, and I hooked Elder Medina up with a new investigator.

Sunday we had the marriage and baptism of Noé y Jessica.  They were pretty cool investigators.  Elder Stone baptized them (he was in San Jorge before me).  He kept dunking them too fast and had to keep repeating.  Funny.

The pictures are of the marriage and baptism.  It´s got me, Elder Gonzalez, Noé y Jessica, Elder Stone, and Neddie in them.  Good times.  I didn´t have pictures of my first baptism...but oh well.

Ok.  Well I´ve got to go now, but it's all going great.

Elder Bailey

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