Zarahemla Week 4

Me with Elder Luna

This week was great! We were super busy and got a ton done which was great.

I realized I haven't really defined what a typical day goes like, so I'll do so now. We wake up a little earlier, about 6:10 every day, to go play "Soccer Tennis" at a nearby field. It's essentially tennis, except you play it with a soccer ball. It's a bit hard since I never really played soccer, but it's fun! We then go back and get ready for the day. Since there are 4 people and one bathroom, it sometimes takes a while for everyone to get ready. But we all just eat and workout a little bit when the others are washing up. Then, at around 8:30, we start daily planning. We talk about the meetings and lessons we have and the things we have to do that day. We talk about the needs of our investigators and set general lesson topics and commitments for them. We set goals for how many new investigators we can find and other goals for the day. This planning session usually lasts about half an hour. Then we go on to personal study for an hour, companionship study for an hour and a half (extra 30 minutes since I'm in training), and then we do language study for an hour (which I alternate between Spanish and French each day). Then we have lunch at the apartment and begin our proselyting time. The rest of the day varies greatly day by day, usually we are able to have about two to three lessons or other appointments each day. Since our area is huge (a bit more than the whole east half of the island), we have a ton of travelling time, so we can't do many lessons in a day, but it allows us to do finding for a good chunk of the day. When we get home, usually at 8:00, we make dinner, write in journals and study a bit more (if we want to), and then get to bed by 10:30. It's pretty fun!

Just an alley in southeast that I thought was cool

On Tuesday, we were able to visit a member who has been in the hospital for the past few weeks. We have visited him a couple times before, and he's really nice. His name is Hermano Mendoza, and he has been recovering from a surgery that didn't go super well, so he's been in some pain. We were able to go and read the Book of Mormon with him a little bit, and he loved seeing us. It was awesome to raise his spirits a little bit.

On Wednesday, we had an apartment inspection from a senior couple who is really cool. We had a bit of time since they were running late, and they love spy movies apparently, so we decided to quickly set up a laser (red string) maze from them to have to walk through to inspect our apartment. We took off the smoke detector to activate as an alarm if they tripped any of the strings, which happened since they are pretty old and aren't super flexible. It was stupid but super funny since they played along. We then went to visit an investigator named Mauricio, who is really nice. He has been really enjoying the lessons so far, and convinced his friend Ricardo to take our lessons too! So now we teach both of them at the same time which is awesome.

On Thursday, we didn't have much proselyting time, since we had district meeting (which takes a total of 4 hours including travel time) and weekly planning (which takes about 3 hours by itself). That, on top of our studies, didn't allow us to really have any lessons, so we didn't do much else other than finding. But it was still good! Weekly planning can get boring at times, but it's awesome to talk about each our investigators individually and plan for them as well as set personal and companionship goals on how to improve.

The "taco" poutine at Frite Alors

On Friday through Saturday I was able to go on exchange with another Elder on the west side of the island, Elder Luna. It was really fun, and super helpful to learn different ways to do things. We had a few lessons set up, and it was interesting to teach with a different companion. He is Mexican as well (basically all of the missionaries assigned to Spanish are Hispanic and are already fluent in Spanish), so luckily, I didn't have to be relied on too much. He also took me to ANOTHER Poutine place that he likes. Missionaries DO NOT go out to Poutine that often, he was just excited to show me another place. It was super good though, I learned from my mistake and didn't get as much as I did last time. I've had my fill for Poutine probably for the next two transfers. When I got back with Elder Colunga on Saturday, we headed over to a member named Hermano Sanchez who hadn't been to church in over 40 years. It was actually crazy, we had found him on the metro and found out that he had been baptized in Chile a long time before, but then stopped going because of some fairly superficial reasons. He is SUPER cool though. When he was younger, he was a part of a Rolling Stones tribute band and absolutely loves music. When we went to where he lived, it was a tiny, tiny, one room apartment, except basically 50% of the apartment was filled with music stuff. He also works as a mechanic, and we found out that he had worked as a mechanic for Ferrari's race division! Super crazy. We talked about music and I bonded with him on Classic Rock and cars, and we then had great lesson. It was awesome meeting him!

Fast Sunday was great. We went to a Ward Council meeting, which is when all the leaders in the ward meet with the missionaries and talk about everything that is going on in the ward and the missionaries' investigators. I usually just write down words I don't know since it is hard to understand them sometimes, although I can definitely notice improvement in my comprehension. We then went to church and stayed with Hermano Sanchez and our other investigators who came and helped them with questions and anything they needed. They enjoyed it, and Hermano Sanchez is probably going to become active again! We will be meeting with him over the next few weeks to help him come back. Since we got home the night before really late and ate late, and since we're technically supposed to fast for 24 hours, we didn't end up having any food until about 9:30 at night. I was dying during the day since we were running around a ton! But it was fine, we had a nice dinner at the apartment.

Haitian Griot

Monday was Canadian Thanksgiving! Sadly, though, I can't really say what all the traditions are and how it's different than American thanksgiving, since the only difference for us was that the busses didn't come as often. We didn't celebrate it at all since all of our members and investigators are Latino and don't observe it. But it was still a great day! We had a lesson with Jesus and Yeni, who are the couple I mentioned earlier who are having some challenges out of their control, which was absolutely amazing. The spirit was super strong, and all four of us were in tears at a point during the lesson. We talked about the Book of Mormon, and they were extremely receptive to everything we taught them. It was so amazing, they are so ready for baptism. They just need to wait for now. We were on the other side of our area from our apartment, so we didn't have time to go home to eat, so we went to get Haitian food again which was AMAZING. I got something called Griot which is absolutely delicious pork. The restaurant is super sketchy, as always with great authentic restaurants, but it was so amazing and fairly cheap. We never get to eat out, so it was a good little celebration I guess for Thanksgiving!

My new haircut

Also, I just got a haircut from Elder Colunga, and it's SUPER short, but he doesn't know how to do anything other than use clippers, and we don't have enough time or money to get real haircuts, so it'll have to do for now. It's much shorter than I'm used to, but at least it doesn't look too bad!

Anyway, I hope you are all doing well. The mission has been so much fun so far, and I absolutely love being able to serve others all day long. It's such a humbling experience, and I'm so grateful for it. Love you all! Have a good week!

Elder James