Monday, February, 21, 2011
¡Hola!
Well, I had a pretty interesting week, a lot of ups and downs. Overall, it was a good opportunity to learn a lot about myself and about the mission. Saturday morning our ward had a missionary activity, where each elder in the ward went around with a bunch of youth in the ward and invited less/inactive people to come to stake conference next week in Luque. It was interesting going around with a bunch of crazy little kids, and I was pretty nervous because I didn´t have my companion right there in case I didn´t understand something. However, it went really well, and we committed a lot of them to come. The ward here is incredible, I have been ridiculously blessed to start the mission here, I hope to stay for a while.
On Monday night we did a Noche de Hogar with a family in the ward that is less active, which went well. But things weren´t as fun after it got over. We ended up having to carry this huge duffel bag full of guayavas (little apple fruit thing) at about 9 PM, walking with an old lady at her pace, about 4 miles from one house to another. When we were turning on to her street, after the long walk, the duffel bag ripped out because it was too heavy, and all the guayavas spilled and exploded on the ground, leaving them useless. Oh man, that wasn´t the best experience of the mission, but all we could do then was laugh, so we did. Gotta love service!
This week I had one of those cool missionary story experiences. We had planned to visit this family (Alberto y Antonia) later in the day, but for some reason we were on a street somewhat near their house. We heard some little kid yelling at us (in front of their house) and we just kept walking because kids yelling at us happens all the time. However, he kept yelling so we decided to go down and see what was up. As we got near, we noticed that Alberto y Antonia were home, which was a miracle because they are never home and are near impossible to find, but are super golden. So we asked them if they saw some little kid and they said that they had no idea what we were talking about...We looked all around but there was no kid in sight. So we told Alberto y Antonia if it would be alright to come by in 30 minutes because we had an apt. with a nearby investigator. When we returned and we were within eye view of their house, but still far, we saw that same kid again. And once again, when we got closer, he was no where to be found. The cool thing was that we were able to put a baptismal date with the family there, and if we would have gone by later they would not have been home, because they were about to leave. It was a great experience. Olson and I call that kid "The Angel Kid" because he was the little angel that led us back to our great family.
I have had many ups and downs this week with a lot of things, and have learned a lot about the mission, other missionaries, and myself. It bugs me when elders here are only focused on numbers and could care less about the people. I love studying in Preach My Gospel, especially about Teach People, Not Lessons. I have really focused myself this week in improving my ability to connect better with the people here, and serving them. I really do love the mission and have been so blessed to be in Paraguay. I know that there is a reason I was called here, and I hope that I can magnify my calling and be the best missionary I can. Serving a mission is a great experience, and I am excited to see what happens.
Thanks for everything, love you guys. I love hearing from you all through the emails, thanks for taking time out of your busy schedules to write me it means so much. Pray for me and the people here!
-Elder Babcock
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