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
