December 3, 2012

hey mom!

no my pday is the same, but last monday was like a national holiday and so like no place was open, so we used internet on tuesday. that shouldn`t happen much, but every once in awhile it might. i`m not in the same place as i was when i started, i`m actually on the other end of the zone, so it`s a lot different. i can go back there for like divisions and stuff, but it`s all new people and everything so it`s different enough. my comp is fine. he got some stitches here, but it just so happened that the doctor for central america for the church was here, and he came by to give a presentation. so he also looked at my comp`s nose, and he was like appalled with how they did the stitches. we mentioned we only paid 3 dollars for them and he just said well you get what you pay for. he said it was just super bad and it was starting to get infected and all this puss was in there. he said if he would have left the stitches there it could have gotten worse and crept up more into his head and brain and be really bad, but he took the stitches out right there in the church, and things have been better since. for a few days my house wasn`t livable, but we cleaned it up and it`s fine now. it was pretty nasty, it was all covered in dirt and garbage and smelled bad and everything, but it`s fine now and back to normal. but we were talking to people and they said that it`s never been this bad before, cause the water got really deep. every time it rains now i`m afraid it`s gonna flood again, but i guess we`ll see how it goes :)

it really is crazy how missionary work is changing. it`s awesome to see all these people go out. i did hear how they were shortening the mtc stay for missionaries learning a language, so i guess it only makes sense they`d just ship the newbies out. everyone keeps talking about how this mission is gonna be growing a bunch too. we were promised today by our zone leader that most people in the zone are gonna be training soon cause there`s just so many missionaries coming. it`s crazy. it makes you wonder what`s gonna be coming in the near future, who knows?

well, this week was kinda interesting. it was basically unproductive and just hard, at least at the beginning. so yeah our house got flooded and my comp broke his nose all in the same day, so that was just great. we more or less spent tuesday and wednesday trying to clean the house and get it back to order, and then my comp just didn`t feel good cause of the poor stitching job so his face was all swollen and infected and it was just bad. two of our fechas fell on tuesday too, and they were super positive, the family i think i mentioned last week, so that was depressing. so basically just nothing good happened all week. it seemed like the whole world was against us.

it got really bad on friday, because we had 2 other fechas for that day, but the world just didn`t want it to happen. so we tried spending the afternoon just inviting people to the baptism, and it was a nice sunny day so it was perfect. i thought a ton of people would come and it would be awesome. but then really out of nowhere a huge rainstorm came and just changed everything. it was a super bad storm, and when it rains like that everything just shuts down. we were gonna pass by our baptism`s house to get them, but when we got there they had all of these excuses and it took forever to reassure them. finally we left, but it was just pouring. when we got to the highway, traffic was bad cause the road was covered in water and it was about the time everyone got off work so rush hour too. we were supposed to have a lady come pick us up in her van, but when we tried calling she said she couldn`t come because the streets were flooded. so we spent forever trying to get a taxi or a bus or something, but they were all full and no one would stop. me and comp were just stressed cause we didn`t know what to do. we finally decided we just couldn`t do it cause no one could take us to the church, and we were walking over to tell this family that when the assistants showed up. it was like a miracle. so we all piled in the truck, with me and my comp and another elder in the back just getting soaked in the rain, but finally we got to the church. it was the same story for most of the other baptisms, a lot didn`t come just cause of the rain. but it ended up being super awesome. there were 5 baptisms in total that night, and it was super cool. one of the coolest things though came from another girl that got baptized. she was actually from my old area, my first area, where i was like almost a year ago now. the cool thing was was that me and my trainer were actually the ones to contact her for the first time and started the lessons and everything. now who knows if she kinda got dropped between now and then, but she ended up getting baptized. i can`t help but think about the seed being planted when i was there almost a year ago, and how i just happened to come back to my first zone and have baptisms the same night she got baptized, maybe just so i could see her be baptized. it was super cool. i talked to her a little and she said she did remember me so that was cool. so even though the world was against that baptism, it happened and turned out to be really awesome!

but that`s pretty much my week. a lot of house cleaning and helping my comp and being really stressed but having a super cool baptism in the end. it`s cool to see how things play out in the long run. but i better run. as always i`m always appreciative for the letters, i love hearing about what`s going on! i`m glad everything is well, and i hope you all have an awesome week!

much love,

elder paskett