This week we had pizza nachos - an abomination designed to trap the unsuspecting. Imagine a very mediocre pizza with regular tortilla chips sprinkled around the edges and a bowl cooked into the middle of the dough with ballpark nacho cheese melted in the middle. It´s a pizza you can dip! And then Elder Aussant decided the best side dish would be.... French Fries. So it was pizza-nachos-frenchfries-grape soda lunch while listening to a Worldswide Leadership Conference on how to work with the Ward Council. But anyways, the whole dish was exactly what I said - an abomination.
Zone Leader Elder Nash, who was in the Islands with me came to the piso this morning for a piso check and we passed with "Excelente - 4/5". The leaders do it now, instead of the Matrimony missionary couples. We got more cleaning in the half hour that he was late than in the entire week before. I love piso inspections. Have you cleaned this toilet in the last six weeks? When was the last time this counter got wiped off? Dusting? HAH. Missionaries destroy apartments, even though I´m trying my hardest not to. We have very, very structured time and anything free I use dealing with the district´s latest crisis.
We taught a lesson to Jesus last night about loving your neighbor. Well, originally the lesson was going to be about Jesus´ earthly ministry and the Apostacy, but he lost it when we told him to love your neighbor.
"Well what if my neighbor´s a jerk? It´s impossible to love people like my neighbors. They play their music loud and are just all around annoying."
"Well we can still try to love them. And if we ask God to help us develop charity, the pure love of Christ, we´ll realize that they are children of God as well."
"Bah. Responding like that never pays off. You end up appeasing like what happened with Hitler or even worse, you end up like Jesus - crucified."
And that was when I blew my top. I was ready to let him have it Elder Maxfield debate-style when I stopped, took a deep breath, and gave the time to Elder Aussant and Elder Schwartz. I calmed down and was able to love Jesus a little more. This guy never, ever progresses - but I´ve learned a lot about the gospel just by trying to teach it to someone so obstinate. We bear a lot of testimony, and that helps mine grow.
Today we got a once-in-a-lifetime P-Day moved to Tuesday to go see some SUPER cool stuff. Not sure if I´ll get the pictures on, but we saw Roman ruins from about 50 AD and after we´re done writing we´ll be headed to see Miguel Cervantes´ old home and the Alcalá archaeological museum. I´ve seen cool museums in the past, but let´s be real - known history from America (excluding the Book of Mormon) pales in comparision to what they´ve dug up over here. I´m really happy Elder Aussant is as big of a nerd as I am.
The Sister Training Leaders chewed me out because their investigator failed the baptismal interview. Apparantly their faith in my ability to receive revelation about the man´s progress was contingent upon his passing the interview.... Vaya headache.
We had a great experience on Sunday - an investigator came to church! Her name is Maria and she works interna - which means 24/7 living in the house of an old Spanish woman and taking care of her every need. And the elderly woman hates leaving the house and being with people, but for Maria to leave the house and come to church she needs to bring Consolación with her. Now you see why it´s a problem. But they both got up, found a ride, came to church, BROUGHT AN INTERESTED AMIGO, and the elderly woman loved it! I found her after church just hanging out with the other semi-lucid relief society sisters, chatting about Spain and tortillas and the crisis. Completely comfortable. I´m really grateful to the Lord for making that happen.
We got a reference from the bishop to go visit a menos activa who was assigned to the sisters - but they haven´t seen her in four months and kinda gave up. Understandable - our time is precious. But, we found her on the first try, and on the second, and her husband is interested in coming back to church! She´s from Nagasaki, so I told her how much Emily loved Japan. Always a good "in". I can´t tell you how many people I´ve struck a chord with because my dad was in Trujillo around 1990. Just throw in "Inka Cola" "Kui" "Montón de arroz" and boom - instant friendship.
That´s a brief sketch of the week. Life is good, I am healthy, and the Lord blesses his missionaries. He really does communicate to us.
Elder Maxfield
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