Monday, July 27, 2015

Por Fin, conocimos el neuvo Pte. (We meet the new president)

So, Presidente Calderon finally made it  to the big bad coast to visit. He´s super different than Pte Pitarch and he´s really polarizing, with until now I think only one pole. Which techincally means he isn´t polarizing, he just has a positive charge. But, that would mean that we would have negative charges, and to avoid saying we are negative, we are going to leave chemistry and physics aside. But, he´s super cool. He´s also super short. He talked a lot about autosuficiencia [self-sufficiency], and talked about it in ways we hadn´t thought about before. We are starting to have the focus of helping the missionaries and the members be autosuficientes economically and spiritually and basically in any way we can.

The next day was interviews, and they were great. Basically, the Pte wanted to get to know us and asked about our strengths and weaknesses and why we´re serving a mission and a couple other things and how we´ve changed in the mission. I was surprised because I knew the answer to all the questions. I could look in the past a see how I´ve grown in just 9 months of mission. The two days together were really motivating for all, and the district has taken a leap forward in obedience and work, and it´s been really great to see the change happen.

So, we finally got to know that family in El Carrillo. It´s a widow with three children, one of which is living in Monteria and taking the lessons from the hermanas there. The other two live at home, but one works and only has Sundays off and the other was taking their 103 year old grandmother to the hospital. But we talked to the mother, and the daughter from Monteria was there and she beared her testimony and testified of the Book of Mormon and of the Church to her mother and it was super awesome. She isn´t even baptized. but she has a strong testimony of the truth and knows the importance of the family and having the family together in the Gospel. The mother, Eunice, came to church yesterday and although she has old eyes and doesn´t have glasses, she somehow can read the Book of Mormon, and has an energy to do the right thing. Also, a guy that I think is Methuselah´s cousin came, and although he can´t read, loves the Gospel and reads the BoM with his recent convert neighbors. He lives a very far distance from the capilla [chapel] and it´s hard to go because of his advanced age. He´s got super thick glasses. Coke-bottle glasses, I´ve heard them called. But, he came to church anyway, and was willing to leave an hour early and walk to the chapel if necessary. It was really cool to have them in church yesterday. Then, after the meetings and all, we met a blind man who recieved the lessons from the misioneras when there were hermanas here like 5 years ago, and his contact was lost in cambios. Teaching a blind man was interesting. We still maintained eye contact, we just didn´t ask him to read anything. But, it was awesome to see his faith and persistent energy although he couldn´t see us and can´t read the BoM. He was a reference from a member and the member is going to spend time with him reading the homework we leave.

This week was super awesome, and like I said last week, I´m super winning as LD [district leader] seeing the changes. But, this week I really noticed I´ve hardly done anything. I´ve invited, I´ve shared scriptures, I´ve given the example, but I didn´t make the change. I spent a time with Pte Calderon talking about faith, and I realized a lot of us have less faith than we think we do. Many times we think we´re alright, and that we´re completing our callings or getting to church every week. The Pte invented the word "activio" to describe the people who do the stuff and are active in the Church, but aren´t active in the Gospel. Often, we´re just worldly people who go through the motions of everything. Double check yourselves and arrepentíos [repent]. 



The picture I sent is the weather from I think Friday. The humidity gauge was broken, but it measured the temperature of the sunny street we were walking in. 43C = 109F.

Always Great,
Élder Hicken

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