Le fe Perfecta

With Elder Ponce leaving, I´ve inherited a mess. Elder Ponce did missionary work with his head, not with paper. So Elder Bushman and I have been building Ensenada from the ground up.

A little about Elder Bushman

He has a chip and dell smile complimented by an even part about three fourths down his head. He stands around 6 feet, lanky build, almost as skinny as I am. His voice sounds exactly like Bob the tomato from veggie tales, which is frankly distracting when he´s sharing a scriptural thought....

Elder Bushman is frankly Mr. Everything. Kind of funny with his reserved personality. I think he´s me, from an alternate dimension. He was student body pres of Spanish fork high school, madrigals pres, pres of just about everything else. But has little or no care for his former life. Things kind of came easy for him.

Our mutual past differences aren´t important. What is important is that I finally have someone to talk to. Like really talk to. After a reclusive Elder Coats, and a Chileno Elder Ponce, it´s strange to be able to say exactly what´s on my mind to someone who can actually understand what I’m feeling. I feel like my companion is, well, a friend now. A real friend. Not a forced one.

Anyways, Elder Bushman has been here 8 months. This is his first time being senior comp. And this is my first time without a trainer. So we´re both.... lost to say the least. We´ve had to separate the wheat from the tares of the investigators so to speak.

Ok, so I love the work that Elder Ponce did here, but the bottom line is that plans in the head don´t translate to plans in the area book. We´ve had to rebuild things here. Frankly, I don´t know what we did for the past six weeks here. Elder Ponce just knew where to go. I feel bad I haven´t been able to help Elder Bushman more, but at the same time, it´s been a great experience to actually have to figure things out for myself.

Now that I can understand what my companion says, I can actually help teach the lessons. Not just a spiritual thought and testimony, actually teach.

So our investigators right now, well we don´t exactly know. We´re still trying to find some of them. Let all the Elders within reach of this email understand the importance of keeping an organized updated area book.

Ok, so I know our most frequent and our most progressing. Marta is at a brick wall. She can´t give up smoking. We don´t know what to do with her because she keeps her commitments to read, just has no faith in her ability to dejar de fumar. Now she is trying to find fault in the church. She knows it´s true, but she doesn´t want to quit smoking. So she´s trying to convince herself it´s false so she doesn´t have to. We had a baptismal date with her, but now she´s headed to square one.

Dante also had a date, but he´s living with his wife unmarried, Yamila. She´s the older sister of Mario, the ward member who helped me through a rough spot a few weeks ago. Yamila is a less active member, but they both want this for their kids, so their working to get the paperwork. All the divorce stuff is very complicated.

Nora had a baptismal date, but has gone completely backwards over the past few weeks, to the point of not being able to keep her commitments to read and pray. She has such a big heart, but we´re going to have to drop her if she can´t make time to keep her commitments. It´s tragic--one of the hardest parts of missionary work.

Olga is a recent convert who has decided she knows everything she needs to about the gospel, so she doesn´t need to go to church. Pride has worked its way into her life, and she thinks that God has something more in store for her. In reality she´s depressed that Elder Ponce had to go, and refuses to pay her tithing. Personally I think she got baptized for him. Elder Bushman and I have tried to work with her this week, but she refuses to attach herself to anyone but Ponce.

Then there´s Ruben, the carpenter who knows it´s true, but he´s living with his girlfriend, needs to get divorced, and refuses to pay tithing. Kind of a combination of all the problems. Big spirit, but doesn´t want to do what it takes. ´Keeps all his commitments though and goes to church every Sunday.

And in the veritable cereal box of our investigators, there´s the precious prize at the bottom. Karen.

Yes Karen. The 23 year old atheist who never progressed over 6 weeks and said she could never change. Gothic. Ex Jehovah’s witness mom. Not exactly cookie cutter investigator.

Rewind the clock about 18 years. A member of our Bishopric, Hermano Marchoni is having good conversation with a Jehovah’s Witness and her small daughter. He gives the girl a Book of Mormon and leaves frustrated forgetting about it. That little girl is Karen. Even though she never read that Book of Mormon, the seed was there. Fast-forward about 18 years.

The missionaries contact Karen who wouldn´t otherwise have received them except for recognition of the representatives who talked to her so long ago. She invites them to come in and dusts off her old Book of Mormon that was placed by a faithful member so long ago. She is interested in the missionaries, likes their spirit and conversation, but doesn´t think she can believe in god.

Fast-forward about six weeks.

Karen is in tears, torn between one path or the other. Receptive to the missionary message. But still can´t believe in it for certain. Can´t believe it enough to change her life. The missionaries share their testimony of the atonement, and the mighty change it can bring. That she doesn´t have to be alone, she can find peace through the sacrifice of the savior, and have the strength to follow his path. Subsequently inspired, Karen gets down on her knees like she had so many times before over the past six weeks, praying to a God she still couldn´t believe in, looking for something definitive, a reason to change.

And after six weeks of reading, searching, pondering, and praying, she gets her answer.

Karen´s life changes. Light floods her eyes and her complexion. She goes to church much to the surprise of the missionaries, fueled by an insatiable desire to learn more. The prospect of change is no longer difficult; it is what she knows to be true.

Finally the missionaries want her to show her change. To follow the example of her savior and take the first step on the path of a new life. The one who can speak barely a word of Spanish, asks her to be baptized. She answers without hesitation and with fervent zeal. "Yes, it is my purpose."

If you haven´t figured it out, the missionary who asked Karen to be baptized was me. And that response is the authentic one. "Yes, it is my purpose." I´ll never forget it. As long as I live. Karen worked so hard to get her answer, but now that she has it her heart has changed. She is firm and unshakable in faith. Truly a miracle. I started to cry right there in our appointment. "I´ve never seen faith like this."

That experience, as was conveyed above, was the accumulation of little things someone did to prepare another to receive the gospel. Little seeds that were planted. To me Karen´s story is pretty unbelievable. But sometimes God does some pretty unbelievable things. But sometimes it´s not in the way you expect. It´s the little things. Over a lot of time. And maybe, if you’re listening closely, you can be the hands of God, an angel to someone who needs a big miracle, in a small way. Little things we do under the influence of the spirit may in fact have lasting influence in the eternities to come. And if you’re living faithful, you can say that you were there when someone´s soul was on the line. Not as a hero who has the eyes of the world, as a stranger who nobody saw. I can´t claim a lot to the miracle that is becoming Karen´s story. I can only say when God called, I was there.