June 30, 2014

Life as a STL isn't much different.  Haven't gone on exchanges this week, will next week though.  I have 6 to do and I already have them planned out throughout the transfer.  Trade offs with members...you mean splits?  Not lately, no, but I've done them before. 

This week was a very interesting one... the weekend sucked up all our proselyting time, but that's okay.  2 weddings and 2 baptisms, what can you do?  During the day on Friday Sister R drove us down to searchlight so we could visit our old part member family out there and she could tackle visiting teaching at the same time.  We found out that the part member family didn't live there anymore....so sister Ripplinger stopped by the house of some old friends she used to visit when she was in the english ward.  We heard all about this less active member who lives out there named C... C is a woman who lives in this little trailer full of cats, cat poop and pee and food and garbage all over the place.  Apparently some time ago Sister R and the relief society went down there to help her clean up some stuff....amongst all the cat pee and who knows what else, the sisters decided to clean out the freezer... and there was a dead cat inside.  C told them that when it died the ground was too cold to bury it, so they stuck it in the freezer.... 8 months later sister R discovered it in the freezer...  We visited a lady named Carol who pretty much has a pet mountain lion.  We didn't see it, but she said there is a mountain lion that wonders around searchlight and always sleeps on the roof of her trailer.  He stays pretty close by her place and is very protective of her.  Then we met a funny woman named Debby who was quite the character.  Searchlight's a different place... it has its own little odd charm to it...half the trailers out there are vacant, too.  Carol told us that all her neighbors are dead.  On the way to Searchlight there is a little road called "Grandpas road" apparently it's a little road in the middle of the desert with 3 or 4 trailers.  You can live there for free, though.  That is, if you're willing to live there.  Funny stuff.

The outdoor wedding was interesting... Julio, the groom, is very negative and was telling us about how once you're married, you're going to suffer, blah blah.... even though he was the one who proposed to this woman.. I just shook my head and went, "Julio, we want to be happy today because it's a happy day.  Let's look at the good side of things!"  After the little ceremony, though, he was happier.  I'm really sick of the whole, 'oops, I'm getting married, it's all down hill from here!'  The general authorities tell us that marriage is intended to be the most fulfilling, joyous relationship we can ever experience.  Now, of course it's something we need to work at and there will be challenges, but it's in the end up to us how our marriage turns out.  I know I'm not married or anything, but my mission has helped me have a better view of how anything works in life.  Make Christ the center of all your relationships, and you will always have a happy relationship.  Making negative comments about marriage only hurt your marriage even more.  I wish the best for Julio and hna. Shumway, but that all depends on them.  Hopefully they'll start coming to church regularly and Julio humbles himself enough to be teachable again. 

The Lozano baptism went really well.  Renee Lozano came up to us afterwards and told us he loved us just as much as hna Hill and Veazey and that we helped them just as much.  That made me feel good, because I feel like we just stepped in to tackle everything after they had already made the baptismal decision, so it's nice to see they appreciate us for the little we did do.  He's going to make carne asada and pastel the next time we eat with them for dinner. :)

I did know sister Maggert!  She was in my district right before she went home.  Super sweet, from Georgia.  She went home early for health reasons.  It was a shock to all of us.  Hope also met the brother of an elder I came out with, elder Fort.  Small world. 

Chris (an investigator) dropped us on Sunday... we called him right before sacrament meeting to see where he was and he told us he was eating breakfast and decided he was going back to the Christian church like the rest of his family.  It's sad to see how people aren't willing to make the simplest changes in their lives - be a little courageous... they'd rather go the "easy" way when in reality, living the gospel faithfully in every aspect is the easier way and brings about the most joy and happiness.  It's especially sad because everyone born on the earth chose this plan.  They didn't choose the easy way to return to Heavenly Father.  They chose to pass through hardship.  They chose the plan that would require a little bit of effort on their part.  You wanted it, so deal with it and make the most of it.  Christ made it easy for us.. it's called the gospel.

HOWEVER, we have a pretty legit investigator named Gustavo.  He seems very sincere.  A little deep, and so it's sometimes hard to understand him because he goes back and forth on a bunch of different deep thought processes, and so it's hard to follow at times in a different language.  It's all good, though.  He really wants to be a better man.  He told us he struggled with depression before, but his dog helped him through it.  He loves his dog.  The funny thing about Gustavo is that he's very attractive and we want to set him up with one of the recent coverts in the branch, Karina.  She's the sweetest and she should dump her boyfriend and Mexico and come meet Gustavo.  Sometimes you have to flirt to convert here on the mission...as long as we're not the ones doing the flirting.  That's what MPLs are for.  Haha.  Just kidding..

I love you all!  Have you found out if I can get released over skype?