Surrounded By Crazy People (And Llamas)

Monday

We had to go to the hospital because Elder Wilkens had to get some things checked out. Nothing serious, but he has some medical problems that they're trying to be careful about. Everything went smoothly, and we even got McDonald's after, which might be a once-in-a-lifetime experience because it's technically out of our mission with the hospital. It took me back to college, where I ate so many Big Macs it was probably getting close to breaking the Word of Wisdom. After the hospital visit, it was just another basic P-Day filled with grocery shopping, emailing, calls, and a nap.

Wednesday

Just another typical day of finding, contacting, and teaching. We brought a member out with us to help teach for an hour or two, and he's a pretty weird but lovable guy. His name is Giuliano, and he doesn't know any English besides every lyric to every popular song that's ever hit the radio; it's actually kind of insane. He also does a spot-on Mickey Mouse and Goofy impression, and let me tell you, hearing their voices while speaking Spanish is a lot funnier than it should be. We took him to a lesson with John, who is a really solid friend we have on date. He texted us saying that he had some questions, which is good but was also kind of scary. We got there, and he asked about how church callings work, but he also had questions about the Word of Wisdom, so that's mostly what we talked about (and by "we," I mean Elder Wilkens because my vocabulary ended at "our body is a temple"). He still needs to grow a little bit of a testimony for it, but at the same time, he took everything super well, so it actually was a really good lesson.

Thursday

We had these super short 5-minute interviews with the president that we had to get ready for in the morning. He basically told me that it was bad to be trunky or super homesick all the time because if your spirit is still at home, then your body wouldn't want to do anything. I think he just shared that simple thought with me because I told him that I didn't really have anything to talk about, and five minutes is way too short for an actual interview, but it beats 7-hour-long meetings. We started the day off by visiting this inactive member and his mom, who is kind of ancient. We were trying to teach the doctrine of baptism, but whenever Elder Wilkens would explain something, the inactive member would try and re-explain it to his mom but would say the exact opposite thing. It made Elder Wilkens so mad, and the lesson didn't go super well, in all honesty. After that, we hiked up to the very top of our area and visited Crazy Carolina on the way. I bought my Takis and Coke while she was yelling at me because my pants were kind of wrinkly (sorry, Mom). She's super funny. We spent most of the day up there because it's a pretty big hike for us, and we had some really good lessons and contacts. It ended up being a really good day, and we celebrated by getting Salchipapas at the end.

Friday

We had exchanges with the other Elders in our district, so we headed to their area to drop me off with Elder Medina. On our way, we saw this absolutely massive parade going on because it was Santa Rosa, which is a Catholic holiday. Everyone was dressed up and dancing on the street, and we were filming a lot of it. While Elder Wilkens was filming, this big llama mascot started dancing toward him, getting closer and closer. He was just going with it until it got right up next to him, and there's no easy way to say it—straight up humped him! It was wild. We ran away after that, got in a Combi, and drove to the other area. Elder Medina and I had some really cool lessons during the exchange. It was awesome seeing how Elder Medina teaches because he does a really good job of always making it personalized and bringing the Spirit. I also felt like I was able to teach a little bit better with my Spanish for some lessons, which felt nice. We then contacted these people sometime after, and they worked at a restaurant and ended up giving us free food. It was spaghetti and chicken, and it was actually so good. We then finished the night by going to a member's house, and they had these two hyperactive 6-year-old twins—a boy and a girl. They were super funny and all over me because of how tall and white I was, so I was playing with them for a lot of the time.

Saturday

Started the day by meeting with this girl who said she had questions about the Book of Mormon. Oh no. She ended up just bashing it for 45 minutes straight, saying that Moroni's the Devil, the Urim and Thummim is witchcraft, and that it contradicts the baptism it talks about in the Bible. Well, we didn't have enough time to bash because we had to visit with another member who was making us breakfast. We got fed avocado, which was actually so good, and Pamela was there too, so it was awesome to see her interacting with the members. When we got to proselyting, we had this lesson with this guy who listens very well to our lessons but is a little too passionate about aliens, so he'd look for any opportunity to relate aliens to the Gospel. I guess that's easy to do for the Plan of Salvation. Also, once it got dark, we were getting back from a lesson, and this friendly big dog started following us. Elder Wilkens named it Baloo, which made me miss a big ol' Mastiff that I remember from back home. It ended up following us for about 3 hours, waiting for us during each lesson. Eventually, it left us, but it was fun while it lasted. And as usual, we ended the day with Salchipapas.

Sunday

Church went really well; we had John show up and also these people that Elder Wilkens found while we were in exchanges! It definitely felt nice, especially after how last week went. We also had a few good lessons as well. There are these members who have a brother who's not part of the church, so we went to their house to teach them, but unfortunately, he wasn't there. Thankfully, they fed us a lot of food, so we'll take it. At the end of the night, we went back to the church because the ward was having a family history night, and somehow we got invited. Not gonna lie, it kind of felt like a waste of time because for the first hour we just sat there and talked to the other Elders before it actually started. Once it did, they made us share our testimonies on family history (which I don't even think I've ever done in English) and then just ate while doing our thing.

TL;DR: A few crazy lessons, a crazy llama/exchanges, and we adopted a dog for a day.

Spiritual Thought for today: "Sunday Will Come." This was a talk I've been thinking a lot about because this idea was talked about a lot in the MTC. The idea is that we're all going to feel times in our lives where things are just dark, hopeless, and really just not going the way they're supposed to. But just like Christ's resurrection, Sunday will come, and things will get better. Having faith in that will make those difficulties feel a lot easier, and I have a strong testimony of that.

Photos

McDonald's

Our mission president is famous

La Ciudad

Baloo!