A Day Late, But Worth The Wait

Okay. So yes, I'm alive. This week was a little crazy. I'll start from the beginning...

 

Monday -

     Nothing unusual happened

 

Tuesday -

     Our investigator had his baptismal interview.....and didn't pass! Le'ts just say that my comp and I were EXTREMELY sad. We were so excited and he was too but he drank tea on Monday and in order to be baptized you have to obey the WOW for at least one week :( Therefore, no ocean baptism.

 

Wednesday -

     We find out that the Stake Pres talked with our Mission Pres (haha both are Pres Díaz) and convinced him not to have the baptism in the ocean :( That was a bummer for the whole zone because we had all worked hard in order to convince Pres to let us have it in the ocean. Oh well. In the stake center! Then later we find an investigator that was actually a reference from a member. We had been trying to contact him for a while and we finally found him! He accepted a baptismal date for the 26th immediately!!! Oh, he's 13 yrs old just like our other inv. that almost got baptized

 

Thursday -

     Fairly normal day. Taught the new inv. (he is now going to be refered to as J.) and he is awesome! In his prayer he basically invited us to teach him every day and that other people would let us teach them as well. At night we find out that Chile changed another law and now all of the Colombians have to re-do their paperwork. So of course, like with every one of my comps, I get to go do tramites [processing their papers] again. The only difference is that this time we have to go to Santiago!

 

Friday -

     We are on interchanges with the ZLs. I'm in my area and we place 2 baptismal dates. One is with Ig. (the investigator that almost got baptized) and the other with a different investigator that will soon be moving to the ZL area. Both dates are for the 26th. We now have 3 investigators with baptismal dates for the 26th!

 

Saturday -

     We find out that Pres Díaz will no longer be traveling up to La Serena for the zone baptism for 2 reasons. 1) he has to do zone conferences so he has to go travel to another area. 2) so many investigators lost their date that now instead of 12ish being baptized, only 7 are going to be baptized :( Then at 9:30 at night when we are about to enter into the pension a member calls us and asks for our help without saying with what. We sprint to his house and get there in 10ish minutes (record!) and it turns out that they needed my help with the piano because the mom and daughter were going to sing in sacrament meeting the next day and had just barely found the music. So I played the piece a couple of times and then the member drove us home. Haha I know the Lord helped me because I have never in my life learned how to play a song as fast as I did (like 15 mins).

 

Sunday -

    Yet another testimony of fasting!!. So last Sunday all of Chile fasted for rain. Well, one week later it came, in abundance! But before the downpour started we went to the member's house again to practice a bit more on the song. After that we called J just to make sure that he was awake and ready for church. Turns out that he woke up with a sore throat and wasn't going to go to church (Chileans are like that. Even if they are minimally sick they don't go to church or school or work and immediately go to the doctor). We were somewhat freaking out because if he didn't go to church his baptismal date would fall through and he'd have to be baptized the next change and i'ts possible that one of us will be changed. We asked him if he remembered what the Priesthood was and he responded, "of course. It's the power of God." We then explained that we have the Priesthood and could give him a blessing to which he agreed. We told him to get ready for church and we would pass by to pick him up and we´d give him the blessing in the chapel. All of that works out as planned. During sacrament meeting is when the downpour started. The other Elders had to leave in the middle of the meeting to run to the house of one of their investigators because if he didn't go to church he wouldn't be able to be baptized that day. Haha they came back soaking wet! But their investigator went to church so it was worth it. At the beginning of priesthood meeting our Ward Missionary leader ran out looking for someone to drive him to the flea market because he had to go save his mother-in-law. She was there with all of the stuff she was selling and thanks to the downpour everyone and everything was getting soaked. Well, we overheard that and convinced him to take us with him to help (in our suits). Well, that was fun! Haha let's just say that my shoes are still soaked inside and out almost 3 days later. After lunch we had an adventure crossing rivers of water and mud trying to get to the church in order to fill the baptismal font. Due to the downpour the zone baptism was changed to everyone having the baptismal service in their own buildings :/ . Long story short, the usually 5-minute walk turned into a 30-minute dirty dash :) J went to the baptism and brought his friend! After the service we taught him and his friend and set a baptismal date with the friend. We will now be teaching them together.

 

Monday -

      2am we leave the bus station of La Serena heading for Viña. 9am we arrive in Viña and get the instructions from the Secretary. 9:45am we leave for Santiago and arrive at 11:30am. We finish all the paperwork at 1pm. We find a member and with him we walk to the Santiago temple. That was awesome! It's actually really small but still beautifull. It was crazy to walk into the gardens and hear the difference in the outside noise. It was a lot quieter even though the street was close. 3pm we leave Santiago and arrive in Viña at 5pm. Give the Secretary everything then we head to the bus station again only to find out that all of the buses to La Serena were completely full besides the bus with beds as seats which was almost full. Well, without another option we take that and we leave Viña at 6:45. We arrive in La Serena at 2am. Yay for 24 hours of traveling!! We are still dead.

 

So now you know why I didn't write yesterday. I was a bit occupied sitting in a bus for hours doing nothing.

 

So that's the jist of my crazy week. I didn't include a bunch of details because I don't have much more time but just imagine the rest ;)

 

Love you all! Please check under your bed every night this week. The Boogy Man like to hide there.

 

Elder Groneman

 

I promise pictures next week