Monday:
We had been planning on changing houses, so we called the mission president Monday in the morning to see what the else we needed to do to be ready. He said everything was fine and that we should call the owner of the new house to get everything changed that same day. The new owner didn´t answer his phone and we waited for him to call us back but he never did, and we decided we would wait a few more days to change the house. We should´ve listened to the mission president.
Tuesday:
After lunch on Tuesday me and my companion we going to go visit a lady who needed a blessing, but we didn´t have oil on hand, so we went to our house to go grab some. Our horrible week began when we walked in the house. First we noticed that there were keys sitting on the couch that were not ours and there were clothes and papers scattered around. We immediately recognized that we had been robbed.
I ran to the bedroom to see that the air-conditioner had be taken out of the wall and was sitting outside. I went outside and saw a man who has been working on the roof of the house behing us. Not thinking, I asked him what had happened. He told me that in the morning he saw a man who was taking down the AC. Another man then came and said that the AC was like that when they arrived at their job. They had said different things, the second man not hearing what the first man had said.
I recognized that they were the ones who had robbed us. From the bedroom window, I took a picture of one of the men with my camara. We then began searching the house for things missing. We found a lighter and an un-smoked cigarette in the bathroom. I noticed also that the plants near the wall behind our house had been stepped on, and not by us. We also noticed that there were many things of great value still inside the house. With all that evidence including keys left inside the house we came to the conclusion that we had arrived at the perfect time, those 2 men had just barely began to rob us. When they heard us arrive they ran as fast as they could, leaving behind personal items and items of great value in plain sight that they could have easily stolen.
The things that the did steal are: 5 flash drives: 2 of mine with music and 3 of my comps with pictures and music, my electronic razor, our portable DVD player with speakers, my flashlight and pocketknife, my camara charger, my comp´s wallet with debit cards, ID cards, temple recommend, insurance card, and Sam´s club membership card, my comp´s USB cable, my comp´s watch, 2 drawstring bags, and last but not least my flip-flops. My comp´s electronic razor was in plain sight but not stolen, and I also had a case full of money that they didn´t have enough time to find. (thank goodness)
We called a member (Cesar) to ask for help moving our stuff to the new house. We packed all of our luggage and went to drop it off at his house because we still didn´t have the key to the new house and we didn´t want the thiefs to break in and steal more stuff again. The member with the key was at the church for the mutual activity, so we drove with Cesar to the church because we also had a meeting with the ward mission leader. We planned on after the activity moving all our stuff to the new house. We waited till the end, telling the crazy story to the other missionaries and the members.
When the activity ended the youth were playing soccer when suddenly, Cesar´s 11-year old kid, Ezra lost all his strength and he appeared unconsious. Cesar put his son in his truck and told all the youth that live in Villa Bonita to get in the back of his truck immediately. (Cesar has to give all the youth a ride home after mutual). With about 25 people in the truck we all drove to the nearest doctor who told us that we needed to go to the emergency room. After Ezra was taken in we could all finally go to Villa Bonita. After all the kids were dropped off, I told Cesar to just drop us off and that we would just sleep in the house that had been robbed so that he could get back to his son. He did that, (and in case you were wondering, Ezra is much better now.)
We arrived at our house at about 10:30 and slept on couches in the living room because the bedroom had a huge whole in the wall. I stacked the beds and tables in front of where people could easily enter the house. I slept with a frying pan under the couch because it was the best weapon we had. I was really scared that people would break in again.
Wednesday:
I woke up after dreaming all the what could´ve happened that night. Everything was fine, but we had a lot to do. First of all, my companion needed to cancel his debit cards, so we went first thing in the morning to do that. Unfortunately, at the bank he couldn´t find his card in the system and he didn´t have any form of Identification, so that was a pain. We then called the owner of the house to tell her what happened, (she was pissed). After that we called Cesar to see how his son was doing and if we could get our stuff from his house. He had gotten home from the ER at 7 in the morning. He is such a good guy and helped us get the few necessary things to our new house.
We could finally start proselyting. We walked by Brother Iriarte´s house to talk to them for a little while. They were obviously concerned when we told them that we were robbed. Then his wife surprised us; without us telling her, she told us all the things that had been robbed from us, down to the flip-flops. The man that robbed us had tried to sell all of our stuff to her in her store. The man in the picture in my camara was the same man who had tried selling her my stuff. Apparently he goes to her store almost every day.
That day it was difficult to focus on teaching. When night came, we decided we would carry a few more things from our old house to our new house. When we entered the house the back door was open! Someone had broken in again. He smoked his cigarette and took his lighter back. I imagine that he was looking for his keys that he left. He didn´t find them because I had them in my pocket. We wondered why he would be so dumb to leave the back door open. My companion noticed that the bathroom door was closed. Being scared, my companion quickly pushed on the door to see if it was open. When it didn´t open, he told me that the thief was in our bathroom and I should call the police. I did. While waiting for the police to arrive, I grabbed the frying pan and opened the bathroom door ready to kill someone. The door opened, but there was no one. Luckily my comp was wrong.
The police got there and I told them everything that had happened from the past two days. After we went to the new house to sleep.
Thursday:
In the morning on Thursday we had a multi-zone conference in Obregón. After we were able to talk to the president a little bit more about what happened. When we returned to Villa Bonita, we decided to pass by the old house. I don´t think we were even surprised to see that the bars on the window had be broken off, the window was broked and the AC was gone. On the ground we saw a key to a car, a blade that was used to try cut the pad-lock off the door, and a tool that they used to brake the bars or the window free from the house. The neighbor was there and she told us that the police had been there the night before and that she was really scared.
We tried opening the door with the key, but they had messed with the door from the inside so that we couldn´t open it even with the key. I entered through the window, hoping not to find people inside. I didn´t find people, but so many things were knocked over and I could smell so much marijuana that had been smoked inside our house the night before. I used a knife to open the door from the inside. We noticed that our little electric stove had been stolen along with the AC. The rest was still there.
We called the owner of the house again (she was even more pissed) and we told her that we were going to put all her things in our new house. We then called Brother Iriarte who helped us put everything in his truck and haul it all to the new house.
Friday:
During all this time, we had been planning a baptism for a little girl named Keylani. Friday night was the day of her baptism. Friday morning was the day of her interview. The zone leaders had to add to the stressful week when they showed up 45 minutes late for the interview when Keylani had to make it to school. While waiting for them to show up, I called every member that I had in my phone to invite them to the baptism. The interview went well, and while it was happening, we taught Keylani´s mom and set a baptism date.
After the interview, the zone leaders told me that we needed the signature of Keylani´s stepdad and not her mom. I thought that was crazy because they´re not even married and he has nothing to do with Keylani. The step-dad was working and wouldn´t return until 11:00 that night. I was so worried that the baptism wasn´t going to happen that I called the mission president. After 20 minutes of talking, I convinced him to let me baptize Keylani, with one condition: I promised that Keylani´s mom would be baptized.I was so relieved.
As we were finishing planning the baptism, I get a call from Keylani´s mom. She tells me that we have to postpone the baptism because Sarai was sick. Sarai is the member that has been bringing Keylani to church for the last 6 months. I said that would be ok. Stressed again, I had to call every single member that I invited earlier to tell them that there wouldn´t be a baptism and that it would be Sunday in the morning.
Friday night I had my first baptism interview as District Leader for a guy named Chalo. He would be getting baptized Saturday night. (which was the original date of Keylani´s baptism) The interview went really well and we finished the night playing piano in the chapel with him and the sister missionaries who taught him. Playing the piano is a great way to conquer stress.
Saturday:
Nothing crazy happened on Saturday. Jose, (Yu-Yo´s friend from last week) apparently cried to his mom telling her that he didn´t want to go to the discussion that we had planned. That surprised me. We had another lesson with an 8-year old named Genesis and her mom. She will be baptized on December 12th. We had a lesson with Luis Angel, (the bishop´s daughter´s boyfriend) and his sister. The lesson went well and he accepted another baptism date. After that lesson, Luis´s sister almost kissed my companion. My companion did absolutely nothing to stop it from happening. That was funny.
Saturday night was Chalo´s baptism. I got the opportunity to baptize him. Of all the member´s that I invited to the baptisms, one showed up. It´s a good thing that Chalo invited a lot of family so that the baptism wasn´t completely empty. After the baptism, we bought Choco-flan for Keylani´s baptism.
Sunday:
We woke up early on Sunday to make it to the baptism that would happen at 9:00. We got there to try to warm up the water and make the program. The baptism went really well. I don´t have any pictures of it because my camara died and my charger got stolen. Another sister should be sending me the pictures.
Church was absolutely amazing. We had 5 investigators at church even though during the week we had hardly been able to teach. The investigators were: Marisol (Keylani´s mom), Luis Angel, Pablo Ruiz (the old man from last week), Genesis, and Jesus Orlando. There were 2 confirmations in the ward, and the mission president was present. :) In total, my district brought 9 investigators to church.
After church, while we were helping make lunch, one of the sister missionaries set her long hair on fire with the gas stove. (we noticed it time, and it only burned the very end of part of her hair. Poor girl, I felt really bad. She joked that always after a good thing happens, a bad thing follows. (She was the sister who baptized Chalo.)
This Morning:
We woke up to the angry owner of the house calling us. She was mad that the house was so dirty. I told her, "well, we got robbed, what do you expect." We went over to the house and cleaned everything for her. Afterwords, she told us that we needed to pay to replace the window and the AC because she never charged a deposit. I was super pissed, and straight-forward told her that not charging deposit was her fault and it says so in the contract. We weren´t even staying in the house anymore when they broke the window and robbed the AC, and we called her on Wednesday to tell her that. Anyway, no it feels like I´m ranting so I´ll stop here.
Something interesting that I forgot to mention is that in this week I started learning Italian. I bought il libro di mormon and I´m studying it and writing the things that I learn. It´s amazing how much easier it is to learn your third language than your second language. My goal is to be tri-lingual by the time my mission is over.
That was my week. If I have another week like this, I might go home. Jk, haha. Not really, actually I´m glad things like this happen. I came to the mission expecting things bad to happen so I could have a fun experience. I´m just thankful it´s over and now I can focus 100% of my time on my investigators. If you made it this far in my letter, I truly love you. Have fun in Utah guys, and happy thanksgiving everyone!
-Elder Steele
Just updating the Blog for this week because Sister Palmer sent him the photos of the baptism. Yay!!
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Keylani's baptism photo
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