Wow the time flies by so fast. July ended pretty well. The whole last week we had beautiful cloudy days with amazing sunsets. It rained a little bit each day, which means that the streets were covered in mud. I forgot to mention in previous emails that we had a for-real sandstorm the other week. It was awesome and horrible at the same time. Awesome because I´ll never get to experience anything that like that again. Horrible because it was a sandstorm and I hate sand. We were sitting outside under a tin roof teaching a lesson and we had sand and dust in our eyes, and our clothes got completely ruined because it rained afterward. Basically it looked like the clouds had a brownish tint to them.
This week I achieved one of my goals. I made these goals during my first few months of the mission. They are:
-Baptize one person.
-Baptize a family.
-Baptize a TJ. (Jehovah Witness)
-Baptize a piña. (Those of you that served spanish speaking missions know what I´m talking about. Don´t judge me, it´s just a goal. hahaha)
-Baptize a cholo. (gangster)
-Baptize a couple after getting them married.
-Baptize a total of 30 people.
I still haven´t baptized a piña, a cholo, or 30 people. But this week I got a couple married! This week Paula and Luis got married! Paula still didn´t get baptized though, just because they are waiting until their cousins get in town this week so the baptism can be more special I guess. They are so awesome though. We never leave their house without a handful of food. The other day we ate a ton of molletes and then we ran all the way to our house because it was getting late. We about threw up before we got home. At the wedding we were just sitting there waiting and then someone pointed to us and asked if we were the witnesses. Another person responded and was like "no, they´re the mormons." It got us cracking up pretty good.
It seems like we´re going to have to play "Hitch" for the next little while because we have to more couples of investigators who are progressing but they need to get married. I think I need to make a new goal: "Baptize a 14-year old girl after getting her married with a cholo."
Talking about marriage, it seems like ever since I´ve been with Elder Loveland, more people have tried offering their daughters to us. They see 2 más o menos good looking gringos, and they also see a easy way into the United States.
Yesterday we were expected a lot more success than we had in church. We had 13 people that PROMISED they would go to church and 4 people even promised that they would be ready at 10:30 when we passed by for them. So what do we do? We walk a really long way through mud and heat in the Machi-Lopez and when we show up to each of the 4 different houses, 2 of the 4 aren´t even there, 1 of them is asleep, and 1 actually had a pretty decent reason for not being able to go to church. That is just bad manners and I´m kind of losing my patience with people. I´m really trying to develop more patience with people, but when I saw them, I directly told them that they were rude and they shouldn´t do that to people. They felt bad and hopefully repented. We had 1 guy in church, but a lot of the people had good reasons for not going, and we are expected them this following Sunday.
This morning we had an amazing zone activity that I planned. Basically our zone sucked this month and we only had 3 baptisms. 4 missionaries are dying this month and they just don´t want to work anymore. One in fact apparently hasn´t prayed in like 6 months. Unbelievable right? Other missionaries are just a little depressed. I´m trying all that I can to get these people to work. So this morning, we walked forever so that we could go to Sam´s Club and buy them donuts, brownies, and chocolate milk. So they all ate their donuts and chatted and then we sat then all down and kind of planched them. (planch is like chew them out, the english translation doesn´t really work.) We talked about the end of their missions and how they would like to feel in the airplane and then analized with them Helaman 10: 4-5. Then we invited some of the missionaries to share their testimonies about why they came to the mission, what were some of their aspirations when they got here, how the mission has changed them, etc. It ended up being really awesome. It was the first time in my 18 months in the mission field that I have been in a missionary testimony meeting. I think it really motivated them. Afterwards we took the zone to go bowling and they all loved that. I bowled and got a score of 130! Afterwards, we met up with some buddies who are zone leaders of a different zone at KFC, and a senior missionary couple was there and they bought us lunch. What a great day!
The sisters who are in our ward are kind of really needy, but they´re cool. This week we get a call as we are about ready to go to the district meeting. I answer and the sister says, "Elder Steele, our house is scaring us, we don´t know what to do, I think we have ghosts!" I was totally chill and a little annoyed about all the crazy calls we get from this sister. I responded like "Alright, we´ll talk about it in the church before the district meeting alright?" Then we hung up. Then we get another call and its the sisters again. "Elder, we can´t leave our room. We´re scared. Come outside our house and then we´ll leave." So that´s what we did. The sisters went to the church and us Elders went inside their house and blessed it. We "cast out un-clean spirits" you could say. I´ve actually blessed quite a few houses while on the mission. My companion and I got a laugh out of changed the song: "Who ya gonna call? ZONE LEADERS!"
Tomorrow we are going to the leadership council. I fully expect the assistants to planch me. I´m ready with new ideas to help my zone progress and not die too early. That´s pretty much what´s going on with me this week. We´re expecting a baptism this Saturday. Hopefully president gives us permission to go to the sea-food dinner they have planned for after the baptism to celebrate. That´ll be fun. Anyway, I love you guys. Have a fantastic week!
-Elder Steele
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