Learning to be Junior

(I broke my thumb playing basketball this week with Kyle's brothers and I told him that we are having another boy @ our house)

Mother Mother Mother...one I'm surprised you played PREGNANT! Secondly I'm surprised that no one stopped you from playing and third, how do you break your thumb? If it's a bounce pass you grab it palm open fingers out, how did you manage to break your thumb? And I want a picture of it!

I might have broken my toe today playing soccer, but that's completely different.

 

Glad everyone got to the house well, hope everything goes well for Spencer and Daniel, I want to see pictures of the baptism. I saw the BYU score...

 

I don't know why Ali is crying.  All that means is that she will still get everything she wants without even so much as asking for it. And I don't know why you're crying either mother.  So just don't!  There is nothing sad about the situation except that my comp was right and I'm going to look stupid, but hey I don't have to tell him right? lol jk I'll tell him on our way out.

 

So story of this week is that I have been tired, down, out of it, lazy, and just sad. Why?  Because I work differently than my comp.  When he's "working" I feel like I'm slacking off and when I'm working he's dying. But he's senior and has the right to direct the work that we do, but it's taking a huge toll on me.  And he is leaving me in a position where I'm losing confidence in my leaders.  All of our investigators are none and it's just a wonderfully exhausting situation. President stopped by this week with the assistants to give a training and I asked President is I could talk to him because I felt that I needed to, and that's when I learned how I was feeling because I sat down with President and told him that I wasn't sure how I was feeling or what I wanted to talk about, but then before I even knew what I was saying everything just came flooding out and I almost lost it in front of him...that would have been embarrassing. He listened and then told me that I was doing the right thing, to just let him direct the work and do absolutely nothing to cause contention. He wants me to be the Perfect Jr. If there is one thing and one thing only that I was not ready for coming into the mission it was to be Jr. It has taken me an entire year to learn how to be Jr. To learn what Jr really means and it is exhausting and this last week I used up every last bit of patience that I had. And I lost it! I did not do anything bad, I did not say anything out loud or do anything unbecoming as a missionary, but I lost it and I didn't have any space one more and I was on the edge.  I was so tired and frustrated with everything.Going into lunch Sunday, I realized that I had to get control of myself again.  We were going into a member's house to eat where they were making a sacrifice to help us and I was on edge. I took a minute and said a prayer, sang a song and went into lunch with a smile on my face and had a great lunch. And now I'm better, but I'm going to use it all again this week being the perfect Jr, giving my opinion and then following his decision. Hopefully, I'll have a little more patience this week, but as for now, I have to go because I'm out of time.

Love you all have a good week

Peace Out!

Elder Lund

A week in the rain....

(I told Kyle that in every prayer, Joshua prays that Kyle will learn the language and teach the gospel well.)

I Love Joshua, He's hilarious!

Well family this week was very educational, and very difficult. It has rained the entire week, which means here in Brazil that no one wants to talk to you or come answer their door. However most will rush you into their house when they see two soaking wet boys standing on their doorstep -- if they actually come to the door that is. lol So this week was difficult, but the story of this week goes like this. We were teaching a woman and her two children, they live in another city.  She is illiterate.  Her children are 8 and 10.  They are unbelievably poor and have no mannerism or level of decency, or etiquette of any kind.making it very difficult to teach-- almost impossible. She also has a crush, at 36 years-old, on my companion and has the attention and comprehension of a child younger than Joshua. So we have to explain everything like we would to the primary and then repeat it another 7 times. We found out Saturday that even doing this she didn't get it. We had the interview Friday.  Our ZL passed her as ready to be baptized, but asked that we return the next day to really get her excited. When we got there her family was visiting, her sister and brother in-law and his daughter. The sister is very catholic and didn't say anything bad or wrong, but neither did she say anything good or helpful. However she did ask for a blessing and we blessed everyone in the house upon their request with a blessing of comfort and it was very spiritual and uplifting and I thought to myself if this doesn't excite her, nothing will. We then taught and answered questions and left an amazing lesson, but still she said I'll go to your church one week and the next I'll go to the catholic church, and she was not of the disposition to be baptized either. We taught and explained and tried to help, but when we left her mind wasn't changed. We called our LZ to say that we wouldn't be having a baptism because my comp didn't want to baptize her with her lack of testimony and from what we saw her obvious incomprehension of everything we had taught. Our LZ was Not Happy and told us that she was ready and we needed to return and get her excited for her baptism! My comp fought a little because we were already back in our city and without a way to return. Our LZ told us to return in the morning before church--to do it then. Neither of us wanted to or agreed with our LZ, but I convinced my companion to pray with me asking for guidance and then helped him to follow through and follow our leaders instructions. Sunday we woke up at 5 in the morning and got ready in our suits and in a cold morning mist walked 2-3 miles to catch a 6:30 bus and at 7 we were in her house again trying to encourage her to come to church, if she wouldn't be baptized to just come to church. After an hour she persisted that she couldn't because she had a cold and we had to leave her behind and go to church. Lesson of the week, when you know that your leaders are wrong, but still do what they ask, they have no way to blame you for their being wrong or that things didn't work out. Neither me nor my comp enjoyed Sunday morning, but the best way to turn the day around is to go home, break your fast, eat 4 cookies and drink a liter of kool-aid! =) after that Sunday was pretty good. lol

I have to go now.  Have a good week and I'll talk to you all next week

Peace Out

Elder Lund