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| The Zone |
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| My zone leaders |
Elder Salazar and I will both be staying in Montevista and
absorbing the other half of the area that was previously covered by another
companionship. In the past, for English missionaries there was only one companionship
for every two stakes. Through the past couple transfers, our mission has been
trying to work towards having one set of missionaries for each stake. So on
Sunday, the transfer board was all done then President Hiers went to lunch with
Elder Perry who told him that they wanted it done now. President Hiers went
straight to the transfer room and changed everything up moving about 80% of
missionaries to different areas and white washing a TON. It is a big and
exciting change; a lot of stakes will be happy. It will also be more tough for
those English missionaries to focus only on baptisms which is good; it will
force a lot more less active work.
This transfer I plan on getting our ward council more involved
by inviting them to set us up less-active lessons and hopefully that will be a
good start to where we can eventually transition to having them set us up
lessons with potential investigators. We will see how it goes; it'll take some
time.
So this past Sunday, we brought a 20-year-old less-active
member with us to the departing missionary fireside. There was a big group and
some very great missionaries coming home, two of them being the longest serving
assistants since I have been on the mission, so I'm sure that was a tough day
for President and Sister Hiers because of how closely and how long they worked
with them. It went well, and I think the less active we brought has a desire to
serve a mission now. He just needs to start saving, because he has no money and
won't let anyone help him pay for it if he does decide to go.
So we had some progress with Angelica. We had set up the
lesson with her husband from when we picked him up from the broken down car
incident. We got there, and he was over across the street talking on the phone...probably
to his other woman that he is seeing, and we waited for him to finish and come
back over to have the lesson. Anyway, we taught them both the first lesson. He
was very hard hearted and mean at first, and then, randomly, he just stopped
and started to agree with what we said and almost just said everything he knew
that we wanted to hear. He agreed to baptism with kind of a fake smile on his
face, and we knew he was lying to us but couldn't really say anything. We went
back the next morning to talk to Angelica, and she just said yeah he was trying
to just get us out of the house faster. We went back for the second lesson, and
he walked to the back room immediately when we got there and said he was
unavailable. He shows no sign of caring or improving at all, and he makes fun
of his wife for trying. Either way, she brought her three kids to a baptism on
Saturday, but that was only because we asked him specifically for permission.
She even came to church the next day [without her kids :( ] and we just had to
get her a ride to both of those things. She has felt the Spirit really strong
and is loving everything so far; she just talks way, way too much so we can
barely ever teach anything. It's so difficult to teach like that and most
Hispanics are that way. I don't think her husband will let her go much farther;
he is kind of crazy, hearing the stories about him from his wife just gave me
another reason to put him on the list of my hit list for when I come back to
visit, but maybe his heart will be softened one day.
We met a really awesome family this week that we have been
searching for all transfer long. Every time we have gone by (five or six times)
they look out the window and then turn the lights off. We are positive it is
when the parents are home, too. We have even sent three member families to go
see them that are friends with them. So we drove by with Hermano Duarte, and we
saw the dad standing outside (had never seen him before, but we figured it was
him). We stopped the car and jumped out, and he was on the phone, but we waited
until he was done. He and his wife are less active as of a few months. They
have three kids that are unbaptized, and they were waiting, because they wanted
all three baptized at once. The youngest one just turned eight recently. So we
went in, and I think we were there for an hour and a half just talking; they
are awesome!. Elder Salazar and Hermano Duarte talked to the parents for a
while. They are from the capital of Guatemala. I talked to the kids the entire
time. I love kids. As soon as I walked in, they gave me a shy look and wouldn't
really talk to me, so I made it a goal to get them to open up to me before I
left the house that night. By the end of the night, they were all interrupting
each other trying to talk all at once and jumping up and down talking about
their favorite rides at Disneyland, their favorite books (Fablehaven, Percy Jackson,
Magic Tree house...all books that I have read.) and their favorite TV shows. I
think we spent 30 minutes just talking about our favorite rides at Disneyland
and another 20 talking about the funny parts in Disney movies. It was fun, the
parents really want us to come back now. They went out of town, but we should
find them again tonight. the kids were really easy to get to open up once I saw
the picture on the wall of the three of them at Disneyland.
We had transfer breakfast this morning and had something
called monkey bread. It is my new favorite thing in this world. We played
basketball for a little bit after that. So like I said Elder Mark and Coronado
are both getting transferred to the English program. We will miss them; we had
a lot of fun with them this transfer. Elder Coronado makes people laugh a lot
and always does weird voices and accents and makes everything into a metaphor.
Elder Mark and I just quoted Brian Reagan all the time to each other. It was
fun being with them; hopefully they do well in English. Elder Senn will also be
sent to English and in Cache Valley as a district leader but not in my zone.
Elder Plowman is living the dream and going as a zone leader in Mt. Lewis Omega,
which has been baptizing weekly for a little bit now. That's awesome; he
deserves it. He is one of the best missionaries I know. This transfer Elder Salazar
and I will work on virtue and not talking about non mission related things.
I had a rough day Saturday and Sunday since we didn't have
any baptisms this transfer. It was a rough little, but as always, I just tried
to recognize it as a growing opportunity and chance to gain more faith which I
have always lacked on. This transfer I am also going to smile more often, even
though it hurts my cheeks to smile all the time and feels like I am not taking
anything seriously. From what everyone says, my serious face looks angry, so I
just need to work on smiling. I need to be more loving, too. Now that I have
had one transfer with Elder Salazar going really hard on him with feedback and
cramming as much as I can into his head, now we can just work together rather
than me teaching him everything. He did well for senior week. I was hard on him
as I typically am when training someone, and I think he got frustrated, but he
grew a lot this week and really wouldn't need me anymore if he had been
transferred so that was the goal. Plus, in the departing fireside, he said it
gave him and Elder Senn something to talk about at the fireside on Sunday (how
much they both hated doing senior week, ha-ha). This transfer I also need to
work on just being more close to him and getting to know him personally; I have
been working so hard I have forgotten about him. Another thing is, I didn't get
to know the individuals in my district as much as I would like. I think I am
going to contact them all once a day this transfer through, calls, texts, or
facebook. Another thing I need to do better is visit members. It's something I
have avoided, because I have always thought it's a waste of time, but the most
successful missionaries in this area just talked to me and said that's the
secret, show up for random five minutes visits to get to know them really quick
and get referrals and go. Most of the members have suggested that, too, the
thing they didn't like about the most recent missionaries is they don't know
who they are. Hopefully dinners can solve that problem, too.
We need to get our less-active ward mission leader going to
church at least. The area seventy just gave a training to all ward council
members of Cache Valley (that's a lot of people). He mentioned how the bishop’s
duty is to call a strong ward mission leader so maybe our bishop will change
something, because right now ours is completely less-active and ignores our
phone calls. Another thing I will work on this transfer as always is finding
joy in the journey. I also need to start making my bed again (stopped
completely this transfer except for the day I do laundry, ha-ha), writing in my
journal at night, not rushing through it at lunch the next day, cleaning every
night rather than a couple times a week, and a few other things. I also need to
stop gossiping or ever saying anything negative about other missionaries.
President made a huge emphasis on that. He said that the missionaries leaving
at the airport all said he needs to get the mission to stop being so mean to
each other and to be more Christ-like. That has always been President Hiers'
big thing, making sure that we become better Christians.
On Monday, we had leadership training for all the new and
current leaders. They sent me to the DL room this time rather than the trainer
one so I got to sit next to my son, Elder Senn! I think that is all for now,
let me know if I left anything out. I am so scatter brains.
Take care all!
Elder Bassett
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