27: Refugio 6

Hello!

So this week’s been interesting.  Let’s take a look.

Tuesday we went to Tazumal.  It’s a big ancient ruin in Chalchuapa.  After writing, I went and ate at Pollo Campero with the zone (the big fancy fast food restaurant that’s not really that good), then went to Tazumal.  We walked through the museum, but I really didn’t want to take the time to read all the plaques and stuff, so I just took pictures.  We ended up taking a LOT of pictures, caught some sweet shots.  It was a lot of fun.

After that I went to work, and my companion really didn’t want to.  After our first appointment, he just took off walking back.  Then I saw a member carrying some beans and asked if I could help her.  That’s really the only way I could get my companion to work—if we were around members—at least that day.  The member then told me that her mom was really sick and needed a blessing, so we walked with her for about 15 minutes to her house and I ended up giving a really spiritual lesson.  It was so sweet.  After, we got to give her a blessing too.  It was a cool, humble lesson.  I was grateful for it.

Friday we went to the temple again.  There weren’t many people, but we were able to bring Amner and Rafael.  They are two inactives who were baptized a long time ago about the same time and are cousins.  I’ve already talked a bit about Amner.

Rafael has another interesting story.  He was a really faithful saint.  He’d walk two hours in the madrugada to go to church.  He ended up leaving his studies two years into it to go on a mission, but he wasn’t able to go on his mission, and he lost all his schooling.  He ended up marrying outside of the church, and now just has a little store for his work instead of a good career.  He still has an amazing testimony, but just doesn’t come to church because of his history.  Well, we got him to the temple, and now he’s finally starting to change.  He wants his daughter to be able to be sealed in the temple and wants to come back.  I think he’s finally going to be able to get over his fears and return to church, especially now that his cousin’s coming back too.

The temple’s still amazing.  I like it better and better every time I go.  One more trip this Saturday, and then I’ll be able to see the dedication from the stake center in August.

Now, let’s go to Sunday.  Sunday I got to work with Marlon.  He’s the elders quorum president and is awesome.  The first couple of weeks he was basically inactive and wouldn’t help us at all because he doesn’t like my companion.  But we get along really well together, so he’s started working a lot with me.  We went first to talk to the familia Lopez.  The wife and kids are already members, but the husband, Adonaí, is not.  He’s way sweet.  He’s gone to the temple twice and loves it.  He has a date for the 6th of August.

Then, in the night, we got to have an AMAZING lesson with the familia Herrera.  No joke, this is probably the best lesson I have had on my mission.  We brought them down to the chapel where the president had prepared a lesson.  We had to get them out of their house because her mom has started talking against us.  So there was me, Elder Gonzalez, the president and his wife, and Marlon (and for a little bit, Angel).  The president started off talking about the atonement, Jesus Christ, then about love, charity, then brought it in to marriage.  He talked about how wonderful it was to be married, the blessings, the problems, etc.  Then his wife shared her testimony, and I was like...awww, how precious.  Then Elder Gonzalez talked, then tried to end it without really a commitment or anything.  So I was like, hey, I’ve got to say something.  What I said was basically guided by the spirit, totally.  Then Marlon started adding, and we were able to ask some awfully amazingly inspired questions and really got to the core of them.  It was so amazing.  Oscar said yes.  Irene said she still needed to pray, and Marlon asked if they had prayed as a couple.  They admitted that, no, and we got to talk about that.  We had a really open discussion and made so much progress.  Then at the end, I asked them if we could kneel down and pray together, and that she could offer one prayer, and then after that, he could.  A completely sincere prayer.  It was so cool.  Everyone there wanted the same thing, and there was a lot of faith.  The spirit was so, so strong.  Awesome, awesome lesson.  I have learned to use members.  They are so powerful.  It is always tons better when we have a member with us.  I think they’ll get baptized on the 6th.

After that we went to Marlon’s house to eat.  It was about 8:00 and was getting dark.  And it was raining.  Well, he lives about 15 minutes away, and the rain and wind started going crazy.  My umbrella broke, which is too bad, because it’s awesome.  It was seriously pouring.  We were all soaked.  At times, it got so dark that we couldn’t really see anything and we were basically running up a river.  Marlon’s cool.  We were joking around and laughing the whole time.  It was so sweet.  Then we got to have a good dinner with him, his wife, and his 2-week old baby.  It was definitely an adventure.  I enjoyed it.  When we finally got back to the house, we were soaking wet.  My mission manual was soaked to the core, my umbrella destroyed.  So cool.

Then we got a call from the zone leaders.  My next companion’s name is Elder Romero.  He entered the mission at the same time as me, but has one change more than me because of the MTC.  Elder Webb, a missionary in our zone, says he’s amazing.  Well, I’m really excited.  I hope I can finally get to work and have a companion who actually wants to study.  But I have to say, I’ve grown so much from having Elder Gonzalez as my companion.  You have no idea how much I’ve grown.

Well, that’s all for now.  Hope all is well on the home front.  I guess school’s going to start again.  That’s weird.  I’m basically forgetting everything I learned in school.  I guess that’s just what happens when you get old.

Till next week,
Elder Bailey