Bolivia, Jardin—Week 4

 
Dear Family and Friends,

Well, there goes another week. It’s crazy. I feel like I was here writing just yesterday—the days and weeks pass by so fast. This week was good. We have a possible baptism set for the 6th of June for a girl that is really excited to be baptized. She’s been coming to church for over 3 years and the whole ward thought she was a member! So, we are preparing her for June 6th.

 

Also, we are trying to get this ward in shape. It’s hard as a missionary to feel all the stress of the ward and feel like the success of the ward depends on you, but I’m hanging in there. We are doing a lot of activities to get the less-actives active again and things so the ward members will come with us to our appointments.

 

Hey, do the poor missionaries in your wards a favor—if they ask you to help them out, DO IT! I promise you will receive enormous blessings and the missionaries will be forever grateful for your service. ;) Well, that’s about it. Keep me in your prayers so I can stay sane (haha)!

 

Love you all!

 

xoxo Hermana Nelson

 

Journal Pages

Tuesday

A Pretty Good Day

We walked a lot, but at least almost everyone was home. “B” is doing well, but is still not wanting to come to church. At least she lets us in to read the Book of Mormon.We are trying to find a job for “G.” She said she really wants to have Sundays off and that she wants to be baptized. We talked to Hermana “V” and she said they may hire her to clean the house. Hopefully she’ll like the idea.

 

Wednesday

9 Months

We had a lesson with a new convert who is awesome. He is 17 years old and he wants to serve a mission. He’ll finish his second year of being a member in September. He’s a cool kid—he’s the only member in his family and he’s never missed a day of church. Pretty awesome.

 

We made key lime pie with a family in the Ward and it was fun. Hermana “V.” came too and we chatted and ate, then headed to the church for an activity. We are crocheting shoes as a Relief Society and I’m just barely learning. Mine are going to be blue.

 

Thursday

District Meeting

Today, Elder Spitale (ZL) gave the lesson and it was really great. He got it from a talk, “The Consecrated Missionary”, but I don’t remember who wrote it. We talked about the things we need to ‘sacrifice’ as missionaries so we can give it all we’ve got. He got us really excited to get to work and to work hard. It’s hard sometimes to stay focused, remain obedient, and keep a positive attitude—especially when things don’t go the way you want them to go. But, from here on out, I am going to put all my heart and soul into this work. I only have 9 months left to make a difference here, so I’m starting today. We set a baptism date with “L” for June 14! She’s committed to it!

 

Friday

Popcorn Brings Miracles!

This morning we had an idea to make lots of popcorn and take it around to the members to get them excited about being more willing to help us out. It worked really well. We walked around from member to member (and some investigators) and sang a hymn, then gave them a bag of popcorn and a little note with a quote. Lots of them were so excited and happy. One investigator even said she is going to come to church on Sunday. Yay for popcorn!

 

We received a reference from a member we met today. She’s dating an RM and has been coming to church for 3 years. She doesn’t live in our area, but we helped her set a baptismal date for June 6th. Hopefully we can keep working with her.

 

Saturday

Contacting

We had a bunch of open time, so we went contacting. We found one woman who doesn’t go to any church and has 2 kids. We taught her part of The Restoration, but we couldn’t finish because her baby was crying. We invited her to church and she accepted. We are going to pick them up on our way.

Relief Society Activity

We made chocolate cake balls tonight for the activity and I think this is the last time I’m going to be teaching Relief Society. It’s stressful. The Hermanas in the ward are always trying to tell me that I’m doing everything wrong and on top of it, they make fun of my Spanish. But, all is well. I need to have more patience with them. It was good try to get the Hermanas to be more united. Now we will continue the class but they can teach the way they want to.

It's been a good week, though and my companion and I are getting along better. She's a bit trunky (she only has until August in the mission), but we're getting through it. The mission really increases your knowledge and perspective on things. I love it.