Hola mi familia!
Ha! I know I always say this, but "quit your complaining!" ha jk This week it is actually because we had rain all week. The rain here isn't those little sissy storms that you jokers are watching from inside our comfortable home. These are what you call tropical rain storms or flash floods! It was seriously like I had jumped in a pool with all my clothes all day for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I would be lying if I didn't tell you that this past week was very difficult physically and mentally. Rain is a whole different thing when you are still walking in it all day. And that poncho thing we bought is like a joke. It is way nifty how it zips up in itself, but it was not made for walking in this kind of rain all day. The rain ponchos here are freaking heavy duty. I might have to invest in one if we experience more rain.
This week started out last Monday with me finally decided to risk it and wash one of my pairs of pants (I was hesitant because I washed one of my suit pants and it totally thrashed them, so I haven't washed any of my other pants since I got here) I decided to just try one at a time. So last week I tossed in my black ones only to get them back with bleach spots! You have got to be kidding me! There was still bleach from our white batch. Luckily, they didn't shrink and are still good quality, so I just colored them with sharpy and they will work just fine. (Then this week I took extra precautions and washed the rest of my pants and it all worked out great so no worries)
Then like I said, the rain was legitimately a huge trial. It just mentally wears you down to constantly be soaked, not be able to do anything about it, and then have people reject you door after door when your investigators fall.
With the new transfer, we basically dropped all of our flaky investigators so we could focus more on finding the ones with more potential (aka all of them) we were wasting so much time teaching these people that would never come to church, so we had to drop them. Then we had two promising investigators this week that overcame alcohol addiction and received really neat answers, but when we went to visit them again on Saturday, they had both fallen back into drinking! Freaking alcohol!!! The people here are seriously all like captives to the booz. It is so sad because they all know it is ruining their lives and they can't afford it, but they always get beat by their addiction and find a way to get more.
By Saturday, I was mentally just worn out with all these problems and then with all these problems, Elder Valdivia and I werent getting along. It was just rough.
Luckily, Saturday night everything started turning around. We had another baptism Saturday night. A single mom named Ana. She is way sweet. She has overcome a lot to finally get to this point and be a member! Then yesterday at church, it was like some huge stake leadership thing where all of the leaders of the stake came from Cancun to our little branch. That is sweet and all, but I didn't know this when I accepted the assignment from the branch president to speak! I was so nervous! The stake president is freaking amazing. He is like this huge guy but doesn't even have a matching suit, but when he speaks you just feel the power of the spirit. He is so loving. When he came in, he just came and gave us two elders a big hug. Even though he is way loving, it was still way intimidating to speak before him. Luckily all went well. I totally thought I butchered my talk and slurred everything, but I have had so many of the people that were there compliment me on how clear and well I am able to speak spanish. The members from the stake were asking me how long I have been in the mission and were shocked at how little time I have. This was legitimately the gift of tongues where they didn't hear the words that I was saying because I know I was slurring those words because I was really having a hard time.
Then after church, Elder Valdivia and I sat down and just talked about all the little things that we were doing that were bugging the other. At first we were both pretty ticked, but by the end we were laughing just because all the things were just stupid miscommunications. he speaks a little english, but a lot of things don't translate directly with the same meanings from english to spanish. For example, he always uses the command form of the verbs, and I always thought that was like to command someone when you are mad or impatient, so I was always frustrated. Then because I didn't like commanding, I would always try to say things more soft like necisitamos ir (we need to go) just becuase to me it sounds more chill, but to him it was sounding like I was really impatient. There were tons of examples like this where we were both trying to speak with love, but to the other one it translated impatient and bossy.
Sorry I have kind of been johny raincloud, but ya this week was hard, but it is all behind and we are ready to freaking turn things around this week. The rain was really hard on my clothes and things, but we made sure that we didn't let it stop us from working hard. I know the Lord will bless us with investigators if we are faithful and obedient, I just hope he does it soon because if my clothes go through much more of that I will have to start tracting in the nude. (which really wouldn't be that culturally unacceptable ha)
But enough of the bad news! Good news... You bought the boat?! No me diga. I am so jealous! You better not use it until I get home to take the first run! ha jk. Send me some pics of it in your emails next week.. and pics of the beauty that I grew up with so I can see her one last time before you sell her!
Also mom, I have made a deal with the branch president and his wife that I will give them a recipe of one of your gravies (because they love mashed potatoes but don't know how to make gravy) and then I will get you her recipe for her horchata, lemon icecream cookie pie, goodness, and guacamole!! This is a sweet offer! So send me a recipe in next weeks email por favor.
Ha oh and you will never believe it but I am back to using a box of corn flakes for my scripture case. Ha the spanish scriptures are too big for my other case and eventually I want to buy those leather cases with imprints of like B of M stuff, but for now I have decorated a box of corn flakes. ha Ironic because it is what I had from that other elder in texas.
Well shoot. Sorry to bore you with the difficult stuff. No worries, this week we are going to receive the blessings for out hard work and I will have some good news for you next week!
Have fun in NYC! Spank the babies! Girls be good! and don't forget... recipe and pics! I love you all!
Elder (Real Man) Jergensen
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