Week 15 in Buena Vista

Subject:  "So are you going to miss it?" "What, you’re talking?"

This week. Wow. Mostly it wasn't very eventful, but it became a little bit nuts.

So to start off, we had training meetings Tuesday and Thursday almost all day, and this week Tuesday and Friday we have some more. So we hardly worked in our areas those days. Wednesday I was on interchanges with Chalchuapa, meaning that I thought that there was a problem there in Chalchuapa with the missionaries who are there, so the junior comp came to work in Buena Vista and I went to work there for a day. We started after district meeting and kept going until Thursday morning. It didn't go fantastic, but I found out what I needed to know. There definitely is a problem there. Basically it's that the senior comp doesn't want to work very hard, he doesn't like the members, they don't like him, and he doesn't care, and it's just rough. We had a meeting with his ward mission leader, too, and we came up with some really good ideas to improve the ward relations and get more of them involved, to which this Elder just said, "I am already doing what I should be, and I don't care about the members." Not good. Especially since he isn't a fantastically obedient missionary, either. And his comp is good, but very very very quiet and timid, and so does nothing. It's all just kind of a lame situation, and I'm going to have to figure out what to do there.

Thursday we tried something a little nutty. We went to buy a cake on our way back from the meeting and dropped it off with a family in the ward. We had gone to them before for references, and they just say the same that everyone else says; "Oh, everyone around here is catholic." I just want to shout, "That's the point! We WANT to visit people who go to other churches so that they come to OUR church!" But that usually doesn't work. Anyway, we gave them the cake and said that we were going to come back on Friday to eat it with them if and only if they invited a friend to watch the Restoration with us. And you know what? They found someone! So we went over and watched the Restoration and ate cake. And I think this girl might be pretty good. But we'll have to see.

Funny story as well: I don't know if you all remember this, but a while ago I mentioned something about Alba Delgado being really funny because she thought that she might not be able to take the sacrament because when she goes to sell things she sells them for a different price than she buys them and thinks that it's lying. Well, now we found out why. Enter the Salazar family. The husband is probably 55 or so, and the wife is 17. With a 3 year old baby. That would be enough, but get this. They got baptized (or at least the wife did) less than a year ago, and then almost immediately went inactive. The reason? The wife had bought something from Alba for a couple dollars, and then a few days later her husband went into town and found out that there it's a little bit cheaper. Outraged, he confronted her about it, calling her a lier and a devil worshipper and demanding his money back. Her husband, Juan, then got involved to try to explain that it was part of her business to sell things at those prices, otherwise she wouldn't make any money. The Salazar husband got completely upset and left the church. And don't think I'm exaggerating at all. I'm not. We went to talk to him and he was telling us about how hard the devil tries to keep them from going to church. And to me it was hilarious. He was saying stuff like, "There are just some people at church who go to church but really aren't worshipping Christ. They're worshipping the devil. There are just enemies in the congregation." or "One time, she sat in the row in front of me! I couldn't believe it! How could I have taken the sacrament with her right next to me?" and he would make this disgusted look and shiver. Wow. I think we may just leave him inactive for now. That's probably bad to say. We'll just have to invite him to talk to president.

And then the other big news was with the baptism that we had. Olga and Rodolfo got baptized and married on Saturday almost without a problem, and then Sunday they got confirmed. The catch? They didn't actually get married. The lawyer called me less than an hour before the marriage to say that there was a problem with the papers. Since everything was planned and the whole branch was going to show up, we decided that we would have a fake wedding, get them baptized, have them live separately for a few days, and take care of the paperwork later. It's working out okay, especially since he already went back to Guatemala to work. We just have to hope that we get the paperwork done without any problems. Oh, and we're also kind of upset at the lawyer because this is her fault for not telling us days sooner when she should have, and this isn't the first time she's done this. But oh well. We'll let her repent later :) Also, I baptized Olga, and then my comp baptized Rodolfo. It worked out great. It was an awesome service.

Alright, I was going to send the baptismal pictures to them so that they can forward them to Rodolfo's daughter who is on a mission in Chile, so I'll finish this up. Thanks for all of your emails, support, and love! I love you all!

Elder David Arrington

PS: Sorry, you may just have to piece together an email for the ward. My bad!

PPS: We still haven't worked out the phone call. President will probably talk about it on Friday, so we figured we'd wait until then.