7-29-13

Hey Mom,

Those photos look amazing. San Francisco looks really nice, the only thing that I am not a huge fan of there are the people. They are kind of the odd city of the states. Things are good here in Huehue.  It has seemed to have taken a break from the rain season, it's back to being hot again. Some days I feel like my shoes are going to melt onto the road it’s so hot. My tan lines are getting pretty serious. Like when I take off my watch my arm is black with this little white line, but its really, really defined. 

This week our zone pretty much all got e changed out. We had one companionship, a trainer and his son, that they both had bought tablets, like i-pads, and were just sitting in the house being bums. 

There was another sister missionary who they caught talking to her boyfriend, who is also here in Guate as a missionary, on the telephone. And lastly some members had taken pictures of some missionaries that had gone to the state fair on a Sunday and were going on the rides and stuff. Missionary clothes and all. 

It’s seriously just kind of disappointing when missionaries do stuff like that. As a leader it's ugly because we are the ones who have to go and take care of all the problems, figure out who is going to go where, how they are going to get there, what are we going to do with this stuff, it's super frustrating. But more than anything it kills me because people don’t see how badly it affects the work. I don’t know why people think they can just do whatever they want and expect that the Lord will still help them. Like how can you be guided to the right person if your thinking about the new game you just downloaded on your new tablet? The paradox of that almost leaves me with a sick feeling in my stomach because they just waste their time. All the good things they could be doing or could have done in their mission goes undone. Even if you are trying and you don’t baptize, at least your trying. 

But if the reason you don’t do what your supposed to is because you can put off the natural man, even for two short years, how can you expect to put it off in the future? I was talking to my comp about it and he was saying, if you can’t even follow mission rules, how do you think that one-day you would be able to live Celestial rules? Not to go all Peter Priesthood on everyone, but that’s ridiculous. The mission rules are so simple. There is no wiggle room or space for interpretation. Those are the easiest kind of rules to follow because everything is defined. You can do this, you cant do that. And if you can't even follow that kind of rule, you won't be capable of following rules when they get a little more grey in between the lines. 

One of my personal favorite scripture chains is Moses 1:39 to DC 11:20. God’s work and glory is to allow us to become like him. Our work is to actually become like him, by being like him. Acting as he would. Things like this have happened a lot during my time as a zone leader and its disappointing more than anything. You want to hope and expect that all missionaries are great, that they follow all the rules and do what they should, but when they don’t, it’s hard. 

That was the sad theme of the week. At least nobody kicked us out of their house with a monkey wrench though. Always a bonus when that doesn’t happen. We did put a baptismal date with one of our investigators last night though, that was also really cool. He is a fireman and has serious alcohol issues. We have taught him off and on for quite a while, but he hasn’t made a whole lot of progress. But either way last night he told us he wants to make a change in his life and thinks that being baptized would be the place to start. I was just kind of shocked, he didn’t seem that interested, but either way, we just need him to stop binge drinking. 

Today we went paca shopping. There is this huge store called Megapaca that is basically all the stuff from DI that they don’t sell, they ship it down here and sell it. It’s just a huge thrift store, but today I got a sweet new Tommy Hilfiger tie and a copy of the Book of Mormon Institute Manual in English. It's funny because they always have copies of the Ensigns and everything in English from the church for sale, like who in this country would buy any of that stuff other than missionaries? 

But, that’s about all the news for the week. I love you all and hope you have a great week. 

Adam