Mateo in MEXICO: Trust, focus, and trials make us stronger

Wazzuuup?

This week was super good and annoying because I got sick. But besides that fact, it was good.

So on Tuesday we went to meet a new investigator that magically appeared at church with a SUPER inactive member last Sunday. It was so weird.... hahaha. Like first of all, the inactive member only came because she locked herself out of her house and apparently some members had her spare keys... LOL. She even called me the night before and was like “hey I need my keys.”, and I was all "why on earth would you give your house keys to missionaries?" and she was like “oh, maybe I didn’t”. So it was bizarre. But she came to church and brought her friend. And her friend seemed sooo SOOOO disinterested. I was like talking in her face like “heyeyyeyyeye STAY FOR CLASS OKAY?!?!” and she was like “no”, and I was like “okay, we will wait for you here so you can find the class”... hahaha. I am annoying and persistent. BUT SHE CAME to class. And when we walked in they were having an intense talk about the law of chastity and I was like “OH GREAT”.... and so the new girl was like laughing and felt so awkward so I kind of just let it happen and just forgot of all possibilities of her becoming an investigator. BUT BY THE END OF THE LESSON she seemed interested. And even MORE interested when her child ended up LOVING Sunbeams and was calm the whole time... because apparently he is not a calm child and it was a miracle. So thanks to that experience she invited us to come to her house in the week and I was like “OKAY”. So we taught her like 3 times this week and we already put a baptismal date with her. MIRACALE. She is seriously golden and so prepared. She was really affected by the happiness of all the members and just wants that same happiness. So we met with her and her husband and he apparently already knows about us. When she offered us coffee he was like “NOOOOO THEY DON’T DRINK THAT”. And I was all flattered because no one has ever offered me coffee but it was funny. So they are just fantastic. She was already reading her Book of Mormon and had lots of questions about baptism before we even gave her a date. They do have to get married first, but her inactive member friend offered to pay for the wedding? ahha. It is funny. The inactive lady is such a Catholic Mormon. She is literally so confused about beliefs so it’s cute because she always stands up to pray and does like the cross thing and it’s funny because she is supposed to be the example. But it’s great because we are teaching an inactive member with a new investigator at the same time! I hope to challenge the husband with the same baptismal date this week. We shall see.

Also this week the Assistant Couple to the President came and saw the house and so everything is all fixed and perfect and they love us again and always say HOLA to us and I am content again.

Okay so it rained Tuesday to Thursday because of another Hurricane than came in.... and it made me super sick again. BUT I’m on meds so I am slowly getting better. Every member thinks I am dying because I keep getting colds and coughs so they always try to inject me when I am not looking and its like WOAH. But yeah it was really annoying to be sick because it drained all desire to work hard. Thursday morning I woke up and was like throwing up and I don’t even know why. So it was like strange. BUT even though I was sick and wanted to go back to bed I was like NOOO I HAVE TO GO TO THE WEDDING... because we had a wedding that day. It was SOO GREAT. So J. D. got hitched and is getting baptized this Saturday. The wedding was seriously so interesting and hilarious because they literally do it in a tiny office room and the Judge is interesting when he changes his voice to sound all authorized and I just was trying not to pee. But they are officially husband and wife so now he can get in dat agua. So stoked. And on the way home I talked to his wife about the church and she seemed kind of really uninterested but hey, I did my job. Haha.

The new investigator I mentioned last week canceled all week on us, and it was awkward because literally 5 minutes ago she was on the computer next to us on facebook and I was like “uhhh sorry we ran into you when you told us you couldn’t meet with us.” LOL. I really think she is struggling a lot with her x husband and I really just hope she starts coming to church so the members can KNOW her and start SERVING her.

This week we got free tacos, free hamburgers, and just lots of food. I was a little sick of it but I better take advantage of it while I got it.

An investigator kind of dropped us because her husband (who is a member) doesn’t want to see us and we can’t meet with her alone cause she is a girl and she lives so far away so it’ll be hard to bring members. But we are going to try. It is tough because they need to get married but they don’t want to. Then break up and they don’t want to be apart either. So it’s just like “okay well you’re just complicated then”. But the girl really WANTS to get baptized but she obviously can’t right now. Yikes!

Anyways. The members here are great. The investigators are great. But its a little bit scary whenever things are great because whenever something good happens it later proves that it was too good to be true because SATAN is rude and just so selfish. So I don’t want to have the mind set that things are too good to be true but I kind of have to be realistic sometimes. I still haven’t found a happy medium between the two.

So I hope that this week I can be a little bit more focused in the real meaning of this work because it is easy to just get caught up in the numbers and the goals and everything that is really not important if you forget the meaning behind everything. It is super easy to forget about all of that and it is frustrating. So yeah. I am going to try and study harder and love harder so that I can have the Spirit stronger during the week and during the lessons we have.

I don’t know if any of that makes sense so I'll just jump to another tangent and add a quote I LOVE.

"If you trust God... and if you then go and do what he would have you do, your power to trust him will grow and in time you will be overwhelmed with gratitude to find that he has come to trust you"

-Elder Henry B. Eyring.

I have really found this to be trust throughout my mission. Seriously. God is just trying us to see if we really will do his will. That’s why we have trials and challenges. So if we prove to have faith in him and keep chugging along, we will come to trust him and we will be unstoppable. He is really giving us hardships to help us grow and gain his trust. He loves us so much. Really, I know it’s easier said than done, but it doesn’t make it any less true. So just keep trusting in God. Trials really can make us stronger if we figure Him out.

Love you guys so much.

PS - funny story. So we went to some guys house today to wash some things in his laundry machine and then left to go shop for food... and when we came back we realized that the hose that was draining the laundry machine water fell out of the sink and drained into his whole house and yes, we FLOODED his house. I WAS FREAKING OUT. Seriously I felt so bad. My comp was surprisingly calm. Haha. I was like “HOW ARE YOU NOT FREAKING OUT WE FREAKING MADE HIS KITCHEN A SWIMMING POOL”. He was like “it’s fine we can fix it”. And so we cleaned it up and I was shocked because the owners of the house just ended up laughing about it and offered us food. #Mexico.

Con Amor,

Elder Macdonald