Week 48-- Never ignore a prompting

So first thing to talk about I guess is transfers. Got some weird stuff going down here in SoCal... Me and Elder Phelps are staying in the YSA ward but we are also covering our other ward with some other missionaries now. So before the ward was split in half and there was a set of missionaries for each half. Now there are 4 missionaries covering the entire ward together, no split, but mine and Elder Phelps main responsibility is to the YSA ward. We're only gonna help in Carson ward in transitioning our investigators/members to them and if they need us to cover an appointment. They are actually technically closing our area in the family ward that we were in. So we'll still have to go to two sacrament meetings and pretty much do full work in both wards, but we'll focus on one more than the other.

 

So I've got a seriously awkward story about this week. We went to go see a referral that the zone leaders (Spanish elders) gave us. We went over there around 8:45 since it was right next to the apartment and would be our last stop before heading home. We just wanted to set up a return appointment and get out of there. We knocked and this old lady answered the door and started talking to us in Spanish and invited us in. I started to explain we didn't want to come in but Elder Lui stepped in and said "gracas Hermana" and so we went in. I got a feeling we really shouldn't go in but, like all too often, I ignored it.

 

When we sat down on the couch we told her we were looking for her granddaughter and she was pretty put off by that. She started getting mad and telling us how she doesn't like it when three random men show up to her house and ask for her granddaughter. All still very hard to understand Spanish still by the way. We then tried to tell her we were missionaries and that she had talked to other missionaries when she asked if we spoke English, which made us feel a bit relieved. We said yes and she said she did too.... and then dove right back into Spanish! She then started all over again about us asking for her granddaughter.

 

By this time we figured it was time to leave so we told her we'd have to get going at which point she got really mad. We got up to leave and she started explaining where her granddaughter lives and we told her we wouldn't be going there, but that we would have to stop by tomorrow, seeing as it was about 9:10. She asked why we needed to leave and we told her we were tired and needed to go back home to sleep. I'm not sure why this woman we just met did this but she started saying things like "Well on one can sleep on the sofa and the other on the (I assumed air mattress) and one can sleep in the other room" and then started clearing the couch of cushions.

 

Finally we started for the door and she shuffled over there and just blocked it out and said "No, you can't leave". I was SO confused at this point, she kept rambling off in Spanish and I had no idea what she was saying, so we called the zone leaders and tried to have them explain but that still didn't work, but it got her away from the door, so we slipped out and started toward the gate. She realized this and yelled out "Wait! Do you do bible studies?" I said yes and she launched off into another string of unintelligible what-not. We ended up literally just walking away while she was talking, saying "Sorry sister, we'll send the Spanish missionaries over soon!" It was all bad, haha. Never ignore a prompting... ever.

 

We also sang Acapella (can't spell it! Without instruments) in our family ward this Sunday which went pretty well. I kinda messed up the first chorus of "Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy" But after that it was pretty spot on. The mission president just so happened to stop by for our sacrament meeting also to do an interview and he loved it, so that was good I guess. We might being doing it a bit more now, people seem to like it. We've been working on my singing so I'm not all that bad now.

 

We also gave talks in the other sacrament meeting that day too, so you could say we had a full day.

 

So I guess today I wanna talk about consistency. I think the reason president and, by extension, the Lord wants to close down this area is because of lack of work, but it hasn't always been that way. About 2 transfers (3 months) ago there was a ton of work to be done. It was a pretty good area but then an elder who was going home soon showed up and for a month straight, didn't leave to apartment except to go to meetings and dinner. That was it. Literally all the work died in the area. Now we've come back and tried to revive the place but we have to start from scratch and it isn't going well. The other elders have a long way to go now that they'll be covering both areas. I think it will split again some day but it may be a while.

 

How much easier is it to maintain than to start all over again? If this hadn't happened I think the work would be going a whole lot better. I've never let an area die in my care but now that I've been on the receiving end not once but twice, I will never let it happen. The same goes with our testimonies. If we maintain them we will never have to rebuild them. Is it easier to patch a hole or surface a sunken ship?

 

That's really all for this week, I've got to get back to the work. Have a great week you all and may God bless you!

 

- Um no exercito de Deus

Elder Teela