Another week at the Office

It´s been another great week in the offices.

And considerably warmer here too.

I´d say it´s a balmy 65 outside right now and not a cloud in the sky. When I think that it would be the equivalent of January in the northern hemisphere, it just makes me happy. Enjoy the furnace of a state you’re living in right now.

I´m at the end of my 3rd transfer in the offices. Which is making my head spin. Time is slipping through my hands faster and faster. The mission never slows down, especially not this week.

The office complications this transfer have been enormous. The presidential change. Missionaries leaving for other missions mid transfer, other missionaries coming from other missions mid transfer. The latest development has definitely been the biggest blow. The office computers allegedly had a virus on them. The workers from the area offices took them out to clean them. The good news is, they got the virus. The bad news is, they erased all traces of the mission database in the process.

The database essentially includes personal information (address, bishop, stake, parents, etc) for more than 200 missionaries. We merge all the letters that we send out based on that information. Fortunately we were able to get a database back up from February, but there are still a lot of bugs. And I´m no computer genius. We´ve been pulling our hair out trying to straighten the problems out, but with little or no success. It´s been an adventure.

Speaking of adventures, on Friday morning we go to President´s house to see the big transfer board. It´s the biggest privilege of being in the offices. It´s like March madness for the office Elders. We all have picks for where everyone is going in the mission, and who is going to make it on the top ten next transfer. This time around I´ve got to guess my own fate. But now it´s hardly a step out into the dark. I´ve gotten to know the mission pretty well after three months in the offices.

Remember my old comp Elder Gibbs? Well he was recently chosen to be the new assistant. It has been fantastic to see him around the offices again.

With the database meltdown, we have been struggling to get out in the area. I hadn´t worked in the sun for the better portion of a week. With transfers coming up my job has been a bit more low key, but come next week things will be pretty loco again as week one is hardest on the Secretary position. I honestly don´t know how long they´ll keep me here. If I´ll go first thing next transfer, or if they´ll send me out to an area first thing next week. The anticipation is something I haven´t felt in a while. For the past two transfers there was no chance of leaving. Uncertainty is the flavor of life. Without it, everything is just a bit more bland.

As far as the area goes, we have been in a bit of a rut. Damian has been progressing in his reading, but unfortunately missed church last week. Keep him in your prayers. Gonzalo is trying to see the point of being baptized. We´ve made a conscious effort to refocus on just reading and praying.

Luis and Veronica also had a bit of a struggle to get to church last week in the rain. We went and watched the testaments with the whole family, which made for a very spiritual experience. Even Luis was a little teary eyed afterward. They had many questions for us, and wanted to know where they could find the story in the book of Mormon. I had to explain that it was fictionalized. One of Luis’ daughters that was visiting from his former marriage asked if we would ever be able to see Jesus like that. I was able to testify to her that we would if we followed the path that he has set for us.

In our appointment last night, Veronica explained about a dream she had had wherein she was wandering through the streets lost and confused. She couldn´t find her way home. She asked everyone she saw on the street, but no one could tell her where her house was. She was just about to the point of hopelessness, when an old man told her that she had to have faith that she would find her house again. A short time after, a light formed around her, and a staircase appeared with a door illuminated at the top. She asked us what it meant and if it was from God. I had her go get the drawing that Elder Boyer had made from a few lessons back of lesson 3. It had the staircase labeled with the principles of the gospel Faith, Repentance, Baptism Etc. We asked her what she thought the dream was telling her to do, and she explained to us that it had to be telling her the need for baptism. They are such elect investigators.

We had a fantastic finding experience. Two weeks ago I shared with you 3 contacts that happened in the street. Diego and Yessica we taught once and had a very powerful cita. We have another appointment with them in 2 hours. Rocky and Monica we have taught twice and we have another appointment tomorrow. The third I told you about was a bit disappointing. We went to his house in the rain and no one was home. It had been over a week and a half since contact when we had our Saturday night planning session. We were feeling down as a result of the current office situation and the day we had had when Elder Boyer told me to try calling Savior one last time. As the phone rang, my mind was running through all the little things I had to do in the offices, all the current frustrations I had at the time. I had tried calling this man at least five times before with no luck. I was so busy thinking negatively that I could hardly believe it when I heard an "hola" on the other side of the line. I couldn´t believe it. We set a cita for Monday night.

Going to that appointment wasn´t easy. Especially considering it was in a dangerous part of our area, and we would have to go relatively far away to get there. After a prayer of guidance we set out to find Savior. Upon arrival, there was no answer at the door, but sure enough, he opened it up after a bit. It was definitely the most interesting finding cita I had had in the mission. The man was high class. A foreign language major speaking anything from Dutch to Portuguese to Russian to French to English to Spanish. He was able to talk to us mostly in English for the night. When we walked in, Elder Boyer immediately noticed the big bongo drums he had against the wall. Savior invited us to a veritable jam session, and we sat around playing the bongos for the first 15 minutes. After we were able to have a brief chat about the importance of L1.

Well I´m out of time. I would like to write some of the other experiences from the week. It really was amazing. I´ll keep you updated on transfers.

I know this church is true, and God guides this work every day. The longer I´m here the longer I realize that this is a marvelous work and a wonder. When I think that there are over 60,000 other missionaries out there all having experiences like these every day, it strengthens my testimony that this is the truth. I love you all. Thank you for the prayers on my behalf.