Another week in the mission field,
This has been an interesting week. It started off that last p-day
was not too great on my quest for more charity, and I decided I needed to try a
lot harder. He hadn't cleaned all day and his companion, Elder Isla, and I had.
We argued for a little bit, and I just kind of lost it on him for not even
cleaning up after himself and that I was sick of telling him to clean up his
own messes and then doing it myself. We yelled for a little and got nowhere,
and I was mad. Later that night, I pulled him off to the side and apologized
and said I needed to do better and not get so worked up about things. I was
hoping he would have the same type of attitude, but he just said, “Yeah, as a
district leader I have a lot of responsibilities that you don't know about, and
I don't have time to clean up after myself, because I am so busy worrying about
others.” He talked for about fifteen minutes about how he has a lot more on his
plate than I do, and I think that was his way of apologizing. I just said, “Ok,
you're right,” and decided I would just lead by example and ignore the fact
that he won't really help clean up. The frustrating thing is that if he were so
busy with his "district duties" he wouldn't spend so much time during
the day sitting on the couch or out to eat with other missionaries. But I think
in his mind he is doing well. Even if he isn't, oh well, I'm just going to
worry about myself.
So, that night I decided I needed to start doing better. We
read a talk about purifying and getting rid of things that don't seem like a big
deal, but you need to do it to feel the Spirit strongly. We made a list of
things as an apartment. Among them were singing non-missionary songs, quoting
movies, not starting studies on time, leaving out dishes (that was my input),
and a few other things. For the punishments for breaking our rules, I had a
really good idea that you had to clean something if you broke a rule. That only
lasted the first day before our district leader said it was dumb, and he didn't
want to clean stuff anymore, but at least I tried ha-ha.
The one thing Elder Isla and I started to do together was
not going to the gym. We both felt the same after reading the talk. Then we
prayed about it and decided we won't go to the gym anymore. I know it sounds
dumb, but it was a really hard decision, because I really like going to the
gym. It's how I relieve stress, but I know I'll feel the Spirit better without
that type of influence every morning. The other missionaries ask why we don't
go anymore, and we don't really say, but at the same time, our zone leaders
decided to stop going, too so that made me feel more confident about it. I have
just been doing workouts at home in the morning instead. I really have no
reason to complain, because that's what people in other missions do, so that'll
be ok. Unfortunately, this means Elder Isla doesn't exercise anymore, but it
was his decision, too. I can't force him
to exercise in the morning.
One thing I have grown to love here is Tampico. I have had
more of it since I have been here than my whole life combined. EVERY Hispanic
house has some. It's kind of funny. Oh, about the gym, I was battling at one
point whether or not it was actually the Spirit and not just in my head that I
couldn't go. Then Dad's ‘righteous hunch talk’ popped into my head, and I
realized it was inviting me to do this for a better cause, so who cares if it
was a righteous hunch or the Spirit? I should follow it regardless. After
deciding that, I felt a lot better about it.
The assistants came over to talk to us the other day. They
walked in and said, “WOW, I have never seen this apartment so clean!” It made
me pretty happy. I hope my district leader noticed and wants to keep it clean.
So, the zone leaders and us have been doing the cookie night for the youth.
Only one young man came this week, and the rest were girls. They still didn't
invite people, but we are hoping they will soon. One of my zone leaders made
the cookies out of a box. We were there, and he said, “Don't tell the leaders I
made them. I did that once in one area and all of them wanted me to marry their
daughters. It was SO annoying.” It took everything in me not to laugh that he
thinks he is a gourmet chef worthy of any bride, because he can make cookies
out of a box, but I just agreed and said something like, “Oh, wow. I can't
imagine. That would be so annoying! Ha-ha He is a funny guy.
So, this week, I just started to notice the difference
between English and Spanish here. It really is like a different mission. We
went to English correlation. They had nine ward mission leaders. One of them
gave the missionaries five new investigators, told them when he thought they
should be baptized, and said who their fellowshipper was. I couldn't believe it.
It was that easy! I talked to the zone leaders, who are Spanish, after and they
said, “Yeah. That's pretty much how it is. The English missionaries have lots
of success and Spanish doesn't.” Although that was discouraging, it made me
feel better about us not teaching as much. It's especially hard, because the
English missionaries we live with don't work very hard at all, and they teach a
lot more than us. That's just something that I'll have to get used to, though.
My zone leader tried to make me feel better and said, “Yeah, before you got
here, it was six months before we even had a baptism!” Ha-ha, it didn't quite
boost my spirits, but I guess it's just different here. Probably 90% of our
lessons fall through. And that's not exaggerating. It's bad. I am kind of at
the point when I am surprised when people are there when they tell us to come
back. I taught lesson one for the second time this week. I hope she progresses;
although, she didn't seem too excited. Our other investigators can't get
married, because they don't have money, and the other one won't keep
commitments. The other few we dropped this week, because they kept telling us
they were busy and to come back the next week. It's pretty hard. We desperately
need the members’ support, which we really don't get, but we will keep trying.
I don't think there has ever really been a culture of member support in this
ward.
We watch the district for studies often. We learn a lot, but
it makes us mad whenever they show us their planners on the video, because
their numbers in a day look like how big ours are in a week. But anyways, Elder
Isla said we aren't doing too bad; his old companion is in Hyrum where they
average one member present every two weeks, and that's if you're working hard.
So, I guess it could be worse! We are still trying hard. We tract a LOT
and have more success with the white people that we run into. In fact, the
English missionaries get more referrals from us than they find on their own.
Our relief society president did try to fellowship, though. The zone leaders
asked her to help fellowship, so she took their investigator camping on Sunday,
so their investigator missed their baptism. They are learning.
Well, bad news. Elder Isla got a driver's license this week.
No more driving for me. I haaaate sitting in the passenger seat especially with
how much we drive. It turns out that Elder Isla was always bugged that I don't
signal when I turn around or park on the road or sometimes when I change lanes.
I never knew that, but I do now because every time he signals, he points out he
is signaling, because he is obedient to ALL the rules of the road not just
some. It's kind of funny he had that boiling up inside and never told me, and
then used my wanting to be obedient in the mission to tell me what I was doing
wrong. Ha-ha. We laugh when he does it; it isn't in a mean way; we get along
for the most part now.
I have also been trying to be more positive this week. It
turns out the best way to do that is to think how Elder Mackie would react in
certain situations. It works really well, so I'm glad he set such a good
example of being happy all the time. I was discouraged on a particular day. We
had four lessons fall through that day, and I was just not happy. So, we prayed
to know where to go, and we started driving and then walking and tracted a
white family. There was a woman and her dad. They both had really bad health
and couldn't move much and immediately said, “Get away. We don't want your
message.” I said, “Oh, we just wanted to see if we could help you mow your
lawn!” It was kind of a long shot, and I didn't think it would work, but she
said, “Oh...ok.. Sorry I was rude. Yeah, go ahead. Mow the lawn! Neither of us
are capable of doing it.” So, we mowed their lawn. Then afterwards she said, “We
want to listen to your message, because you are actually nice people and aren't
just trying to talk to people.” It turns out they had been converts years back
and had their names removed from the church. They did that because she found
something in 2 Nephi that she thought said the Jews are going to hell (not true),
and the Bishop told her she needed to get a job and start paying tithing. She
said that was ridiculous; they weren't capable of that, and she wouldn't pay
tithing over putting food on the table, so they left the church. I think the
situation was more like they were asking for a lot of welfare money and weren't
even willing to pay tithing, but I didn't bother asking. As we left, she said, “And
call the relief society president and tell her to start sending people over
here to help us!” ha-ha, she was an interesting lady and wasn't very grateful,
but we helped her. She said in two weeks we need to come back to do it again.
We were nice and said we would. We will have the English missionaries teach her,
and Elder Isla and I will do that lawn, because there is no way our district
leader will mow a lawn. He doesn't do things like that, and we aren't going to
make his companion do it by himself, so we will just do it. I was trying not to
judge the lady, but she asked us to pay for more gas for her lawn mower,
because they didn't have money. We did just because it's only a gallon, so it's
not a big deal, but I did notice that they live in East Ogden, have a two
bedroom house, not much in the kitchen, two mattresses where they sleep, one
couch, really no other personal possessions, and an 80 inch hi def TV with dish
hd, a blue ray player and surround sound. Interesting, but like I said,
whatever. I'm trying not to judge how
she decides to spend her money. I am kind of disappointed we found somebody
like this in English and not Spanish, but that's just how it goes I guess.
Anyways, we are working hard. We don't have tons of
teaching, more just tracting, and we have tried to work with the members, but
they typically flake out too when we ask to share a short message. But we will
get there eventually, and if we don't at least we are doing the best we can. I
can't imagine serving somewhere where you never get baptisms at all, so I guess
I shouldn't complain, because some people have it a lot harder, but it just
surprised me how different an English mission here functions compared to a
Spanish area. Anyways, I hope all is well. I love you all! Take care!
Elder Bassett
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