Over half of the people in my area are either Bolivian, or their parents are from Bolivia. They´re great! The Bolivians are really tranquil, and they speak a bit slower so their accents are a bit easier for me to understand. I love it, it´s so beautiful. When I tell them I have a friend who´s family is from Bolivia they all get really excited.
This week was really, really, really difficult. I thought we were going to have our first baptism! But it ended up being the first investigator that we had to quit.
Adolfo (one of the brothers that reminds me of Nicole and I) knows pretty much everything. We have a hard time planning lessons because he already knows it all. He´s been investigating for 7 months. The problem with him is that he´s BEYOND shy. He has a testimony, and the gospel has changed his life. He knows baptism is important, and know he needs to be baptized. However, he won´t actually do it! He likes to use the exuse that he needs to know more.
I never prayed so much for one person in my life. We had no idea what else we could do, so we just planned his baptism. His favorite hymn, flavor of cake, I asked what kind of soda he wanted (he actually wanted juice), EVERYTHING. He had his baptismal clothing, and he knew exactly what was gonna happen. We called our district leader in for his baptismal interview, and hoped that when he knew all the answers and had someone else tell him he was ready he would do it! The interview was 2 hours long. I spent the whole time sitting in the other room stressing. I think I lost half my hair. When he came out, our district leader told us he was completely ready, BUT he wasn´t gonna be baptized. He had absolutely no desire.
I was heartbroken. The next day, when we went to talk with him, we knew we had to break up with him. We had spent almost 2 months to try to get him baptized, and couldn´t think of anything else to do. My compañera cried during the lesson, and me after. He was one of the first people I met in Perico. I knew the names of all of his dogs, knew his little siblings, we had inside jokes. It was really hard. We felt emotionally awful after, and I was sick. And, they turn off our water in the middle of the day untill the morning most of the time so I couldn´t use the bathroom. Then we found a HUGE rat in our apartment (so now we have a 5th roommate), we couldn´t do our fast because I was ill. It was raining. We missed almost all of our appointment. It´s day of the dead weekend so there were tons of drunk people in the street (Including one of our investigators..) Basically this day was the absolute pits.
The next day we felt really bad, so we decided to go talk with him. I told him that I missed his dog Sam. He laughed, an we made up. He felt bad too, but we told him that we loved him and would always say hi, that he needed to keep going to church, reading, praying, and when he finally made his decision that he had our number.
While all of this was a bit depressing, I learned a lot. And, I´n not sore about any of it! I´m back to my happy self. I´m really looking forward to this upcoming week!! I love you all, miss you!
Hermana Shumway
We folded the empanadas for a ward activity.
The ugly one was one of my first, and the pretty one one of my last!
Me and my companion with all our hard work.
Washing dishes with the little boy of one of our investigators!
Our ward mission leader tried to capture the rat while we were out working, when we came home it was super dark, and THIS was in our hallway!!!! He thinks he´s funny.
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