Family,
It´s October 31. So Halloween, football playoffs, soccer tryouts, and all that good stuff. This week was defiantly one of the more difficult ones. My companion had to go to Guayaquil for the first few days. This was very frustrating because 1. I couldn’t work in my own sector the whole time, and 2. I didn’t have anyone who could translate for me if I didn’t know how to say something, or needed to answer a question. The other two Elders I was with didn’t speak any English.
Besides that though, the week began awful. We visited Marcos Monday night. Your letter mom was about Guillermo, not Marcos. Marcos was going to be baptized on Saturday so we went to his house to see how he was doing. The door is always open so we looked in to see Marcos on the couch with a cut forehead and road rash on his foot and arm. His wife looked furious. We asked what happened and spent the next 2 hours talking. Marcos feels depressed because he doesn’t have a job. He went out to drink, didn’t want to pay for a taxi so he rode his motorcycle. He crashed it because he was drunk. His wife was disgusted in him and didn’t want to look at or talk to him the whole night. She told us he didn’t have the power to change. He told us that he believed her. If she didn’t have the faith in him for him to change then he couldn’t believe either. I didn’t do a lot of talking. I was pretty shocked. We got them to pray together. It took a lot of convincing but his wife said she would eventually forgive him. Marcos promised us not to drink anymore.
Leaving that appointment made me remember that this is real life. We are working with real people, with real problems, not just baptismal statistics. The family is doing better now and Marcos has committed to being baptized on the 26th.
Guillermo and Felix are stuck. They cannot spiritually progress anymore right now because some people are holding them back. Guillermo`s girlfriend has opened up to us more and said the does want to get married. Her mom doesn’t want them to though. So Guillermo cannot truly repent and enter the waters of baptism unless he marries Linda but she is not allowed to. Felix needs to come to church. His mom always says she wants him to and has given us permission to baptize him but she never lets him go to church. Every Sunday we come to pick him up and he says his mom won’t let him. We have learned that she is very much in love with money. She is willing to do whatever it takes for more money. She doesn’t want to let Felix leave for 1 hour to attend sacrament meeting because she wants more money. It is hard for my companion and I watch this. Because we both love Felix and Guillermo and there is so little that we can really do for them right now.
So, guess what? The mission is hard. It is supposed to be. So I am going to continue to work my hardest and hopefully the Lord will help Felix and Guillermo to be able to be baptized.
I am glad to know everything is good at home. I liked Dad's email. They always make me laugh because I can imagine him saying all the things he writes. I finished my 3 month. The time is flying by!
Love,
Elder McRae
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