¡Ya fue tres semanas!
It never ceases to surprise me how quickly the time passes when you're busy working. And I've been doing my best to keep busy. We still aren't allowed to meet in the homes of members, so my mission still kind of feels like an office job. Wake up, head to the office (church building) and then study and teach people until it's time to go back to the apartment. I'm definitely grateful that we can keep busy though. I know I'd for sure have gone crazy if I was just sitting around all day thinking about what I'll do when I get home.
Also, a couple of adventures this week! First up, actually late on the evening of last P-Day, I headed back to the mission offices to fill out some forms, and then headed to the National Immigration Office in downtown Mexico City! It was really cool to see some of the actual city part of Mexico City. I'm on kind of the fringe, so to speak. The city was both very different from what I'm used to, but also felt exactly the same as every other big city I've ever been in. Tall buildings, busy people, the works.
Anyway, after grabbing maybe an hour and a half of sleep, we headed to the immigration office at about 3:30 or so in the morning, having been told that there's always a huge line, and we needed to get there early. Kind of like the DMV. Well, it was a good idea in theory. In practice, not so much. We probably stood around for another three and a half hours before anyone else really started showing up. So waking up super early was kinda pointless. On the bright side, I am now legally allowed to be in Mexico, so I'm here until they kick me out, I guess.
After that whole thing, I got driven back to my area, slept for about twenty minutes, and then got right back to work teaching people. I was exhausted that night.
Friday morning, I threw a few things into my bag, and headed off for my first companion exchange! That was pretty exciting. I went with one of our Zone Leaders named Elder Green. You may recognize him from such places as the cover of the Come Follow Me manual for Sunday School in 2021. I'm not joking. You can open up the gospel library app and see for yourself. He's the redhead on the front cover.
Anyway, awesome guy, and the best part - he's American, so we could have actual conversations about things instead of very surface level 'I'm learning Spanish' kind of conversations. We also played some chess. And stayed up all night because apparently it was their turn to watch the water pump in the night to make sure the motor didn't burn out. But who needs sleep anyway, am I right?
Other than that, it was a good day. We taught some amazing people, and had one super awesome spiritual experience with an Hermana se llama Maria. We knew that she had a hard time attending church on Sunday because she needed to work to support her parents (housing, healthcare, etc.) But we felt the impression that we really needed to invite her to come to church anyway. So we did, teaching a quick lesson about the importance of keeping the Sabbath Day holy. She was not having any of it. We were kind of ready to back off, but he and I both felt that we needed to keep trying to invite her. So we did, once more, reading a scripture about how the Lord will bless us for keeping the commandments, and invited her again. She flat out refused. But we still felt like we needed to press the issue. We invited her twice more, promising that she would be blessed for her sacrifice, and that if she would come to church, she would sell more than she ever had before in the following week. Nothing. We needed to close out the lesson, because we had another appointment coming up, so we asked her if she would be willing to give a closing prayer, and if she would pray to know that this was what God wanted, and if He would really bless her for it. She got halfway through the prayer before she burst into tears. The Spirit was so strong. She told God that she understood that He would bless her, and that she was willing to try. It was such an amazing testament to the power of the Holy Ghost, and how important it is for us to be aware, and able to act on its quiet promptings.
The other cool thing I got to do was bike up the side of one of the hills surrounding Mexico City to deliver a Book of Mormon. It felt like real missionary work, for the first time ;) That was a great time, though. I really enjoyed being out and about, and doing some real physical work, instead of just sitting in the church building all day.
Other things worthy of mention: on Saturday, I ate probably one of the best hamburgers I've ever had the pleasure of eating. It was enormous, and I loved every bite. Praise be for that. I love me some good food.
Also, as of today, I've finished the other three standard works, and finally begun the Bible. I shall count it a success if I can at least understand maybe 50% of it or so :P Nah, I'm sure it'll be good. It'll just take a lot of patience, prayer, and wishing I'd ever gotten to take the Old Testament in Seminary. Oh well. I'll keep you updated if I learn anything cool. Which will probably be a lot, to be honest.
And last but not least, my spiritual thought for the week. I can now testify to the power of a positive attitude, coupled with trust in God. So, the morning of my companion exchange, it felt like everything was going wrong. We were planning on getting quick showers in, but ended up abandoning that just because we didn't have a lot of time. After that, we had to find a way to get my stuff over to the other chapel, in the other area where I would be staying. After a few attempts to rig up a makeshift rope backpack harness thing, I just stuffed my bag into a big fabric shopping bag, and called it good. And it was good. For about 20 feet or so. Then both the handles broke clean off the shopping bag. So, I ran back inside, and decided I didn't really need that much stuff, so I threw a few things in my small shoulder bag, and called it good. We went back outside, and lo and behold, my bike chain had fallen off. An easy enough fix, I was able to pull it back into place no problem, but now my hands were covered in grease. So, back inside to get them all washed off. And finally, on the road. I was pretty frustrated, but I decided to try to have a good attitude about the whole thing, and just trust that it had happened for a reason. And you know what, things started making sense as soon as we got over there. I was informed that the chapel we were at was more or less the halfway point, and that we had another twenty minutes or so to ride, and it would be much more strenuous than our normal route in our area. Also, there was a big hill in the middle of the route, where another Elder had had his chain fall off, and nearly been hit by a car. And thus we see that the Lord works in mysterious ways to accomplish His purposes.
But seriously, it was incredible how it worked out. I would never have made it all the way with a suitcase, and since I took the time to fix my chain, I avoided possibly getting severly injured. God was definitely looking out for me that morning. So my challenge to you is this: If you find yourself having a bad morning, where everything just goes wrong, try to keep a good attitude, and trust that things will work out. I promise you that when you look back on those hard days, you will see the hand of the Lord working in your life.
Alrighty, that's all from me for this week. Next time you hear from me I'll have been in Mexico for a whole month! (Already, I know!)
- Elder Blankenbiller
No comments:
Post a Comment