November 7, 2011

This week was pretty good, and mostly crazy. I feel more and more everyday like I am in one of those old, silent British films where the characters chase each other in fast motion. Non-stop, we are running from one place to another.  I received my mini-missionary this Friday in the mission home. Every time new missionaries come in, there is a little bit of a ceremony in the mission home. The new missionaries sit on some couches in the mission home and feel awkward while all the trainers come walking into the room in a line, singing and clapping "Called to Serve". Then the President lets everyone know who the new companionship's will be and everyone has a big meal of pizza and empanadas. The whole ceremony was a huge blast from the past for me. The last time I was part of it, I was sitting very awkwardly on the couch and wondering what I should do with my hands while a bunch of sweating wierdies came into the room singing. This time it was the opposite hahah. And this time, I'm totally in love with the cheesiness of the whole ceremony. Now that I am in love with the cheesiness, I officially know I am a missionary. 

My new companion is Elder Cardenas. He is from La Plata, and will be with me for the next one or two weeks, as I wait for Elder Jolley. Elder Cardenas has his call to Mendoza and will be starting his real mission in January. He told me that he is doing the mini-mission to stay out of trouble until then. I totally understand. Just in the dew days that we have been together I have realized how little I knew about being a missionary at home, and even when I came out of the MTC.  I am sure we are gonna have a good week together, and we are both gonna learn a lot.

I learned a little more about Elder Jolley, my future companion. He is from Lone Peak, Utah (I don't know if that is a place, but that is what President says. President said he is a really good Elder.

This week, we were scheduled to baptize Oscar, the man I talked about in the past couple emails. We were all really excited, I had made the programs, basically everything was ready. When Sunday morning came, I had my usual crazy three hours of church when I run around everywhere like a crazy person, except for this time, I had to fill up the baptismal font. Oscar came to church with his whole family and was so excited to be baptized. The plumbing here is the worst, and it takes about 2 and a half hours to fill up the baptismal font. The switch to turn on the water to the baptismal font is in the women's bathroom. I don't know why its in there, but it is. I planned really well, and let everyone know they would not be able to use the women's bathroom this day at church and started to fill the font about three hours before the baptism. When I turned on the water, nothing came out and I wanted to die/throw up. I kind of freaked out, and frantically asked the Bishop why there was no water, and he told me that the water pump had broken, and there would not be water in the church until Friday. Water pumps are turning up to be my worst enemy. We had to postpone the baptism until this coming Sunday. When I told Oscar and his family they were all pretty bummed, but way less bummed than I was. I was super relieved. I talked to Oscar later on and he said that his is more determined than ever to be baptized now. After the whole ordeal passed, I know feel kinda foolish for how much I freaked out and was nervous that the baptism could not go through right then. I guess that's a lesson for almost all situations. In the moment of problems, we feel like the world is ending and it is so easy to get angry, sad, stressed. In these moments we have to really look at the situation in what it really is. About 99.9% percent of all situations are not worth freaking out about.