Nearly at Alex's 20th birthday! That seems strange and depressing that I cannot be there to celebrate with him. But so it is... I think I will be used to things finally and he will get to come home. What is that all about? I know he has more to learn and understand. He is definitely one of the smartest people I know and I wonder why he is not having huge success? I thought he had progressed pretty far and done a lot of hard things but now he feels like he is the problem because his personal numbers go down. Is it his way of doing things? Does he forget the little things and consider them too minute to do? I am going to have to get the answers from him somehow. I wish I could speak to him on the phone. Would that make it better or worse for him or me? Hmmmm. So here I sit and wonder.
That would be O Magnum Mysterium by Mortensen. It´s a really complex-sounding choir song.
Someone please (this is a getting things done 5 minutes or less item - you have to do it before you continue) tell Kelsey that she sent me like 2/3 of the songs, converted wrong, but cut off. Sorry... I know I could help if I was there. (Note: Everyone is going to love me when they go on their missions. I will be the missionary music dealer.)
I´ve been thinking about what President Ostergar said when he set me apart. Do you remember what was said? I honestly don´t remember anything. I find that something similar happens when I give blessings (or confirmations, which I have done). I absolutely don´t remember.
I´ve been thinking a lot about God´s plan. Not in the really big sense of the resurrection and all that, but more of a "Our Life On Earth" kind of thing. (A missionary might recognize point four of the second lesson.) I was just thinking about something as simple as prayer. What about a blessing that does something?
For those of you who ask yourselves, "Okay, Elder Crist seemed pretty okay with the gospel his whole life - why does he always talk about all these things he had to investigate to get a testimony?" Truth is, I had a very long, very complete, and very heavy struggle to get far enough past my intellectual tendencies to where I could actually have faith. The lectures of faith (what little I´ve read about them" have changed everything for me, and would have made it easier. I do see the purpose of God in doing it - but anyway -
This week was awful. We taught five lessons and did forty-five contacts. That´s nothing. That´s almost like we worked two days and smoked for the next five.
The week made me think a lot about faith. President King came out with an initiative called "Our Commitment with the Lord" about how one must really give everything to have enough faith to do anything close to save himself. We worked, and nothing went for us. We had enough lessons written down when the week started to get our goals. And we ended up with some 33 percent. I know the numbers don´t matter... kind of... but it was just so tremendously bad - it´s like you studied a whole week and walk out with a D- on a test. So what am I supposed to think? That I´m really just awesome and it´s all a distraction? It can´t just be that.
As you know, I´m a district leader, so I collect numbers. The Sisters are doing extremely well, and the other Elders are doing better each week. We have fallen every week. They say in Argentina "tengo la boca seca," or "I´m getting a dry mouth" - meaning "It´s starting to look like I´m the problem."
On the other side, we had a really fun district activity. We all went to a member of the other Elders´ sector. He´s an RM who went to Argentina and learned English, so we watched Emma´s Story (which is a very good companion movie to the Joseph Smith movie, by the way) in English. We ordered pizza and drank mate (that cup is one I got here)(in the pictures). Mate (mah-tay) is kind of an herbal tea, but you fill up the whole cup and use a special metal straw to drink it. It´s kind of a backwards tea. It´s definitely stuck to me. It´s an easy internet buy at home, so I´m confident I´ll do it forever. It´s extremely good. I don´t like tea at all, even. I´ll talk about this in an audio next week to help you get it more. The whole district is gringoes, so we had a fun, fun time.
You are probably wondering about the incense. The other two found a shop near our house and are getting really into it. It´s pretty good - it doesn´t hold a candle (or an incense stick, if you will) to mate, though. Mate is just really, really good. I got a special wood cup (in a metal cover/foundation (it´s the barrely looking one) from Nibaldo, that member we went to today (he´s an expert and sometimes goes over there to find good mate cups). The wood makes it twice as good. You´ll have to try it sometime.
That was all the interesting things that happened. We got rolled like doobs. Then we had a fun PDay. The weather has been suit-coat all week, and in perhaps two or four more I´m going to bring out the short sleeves for the rest of the year until next April. Cool. I´d just like it to stay where it is now for a while. It´s extremely nice right now, if a little cold at night.
I did get the birthday things - or at least what I think is them. Someone from the office told me that I have more stuff in the office that I´ll get next Wednesday.
Amazingly, I´ve actually kept from opening everything except the pictures, because they were half-opened already. I don´t know if that´s what you wanted me to do, but it´ll probably make it cooler when I do open them.
Riley wrote me again. He sounds like he´s done with the MTC - same thing that happened to me in the seventh week. It was time to go. Then my first week it was time to go - - back. We´ll see how it goes.
I echo the best part of the Joseph Smith Movie, and the Emma Smith Story too - "Whatever happens - the Lord is in it."
Asà sea.
Love and stuff,
Elder A Conrad Crist
No comments:
Post a Comment