Week #74: Tuc Tuc strike, rain and more rain.

   

     There has always been a little saying in the mission. Those who start in Las Palmas will end in Las Palmas. This just might be true. After a little more than a year I am back here in Las Palmas, in an Area/Branch called Asintal.   It is just a short ride from my first area in the mission. It honestly is a really weird experience to be back here where I started the mission. I see all of these places that I knew so long ago and all a still the same but wow.... Days like today going around and seeing all of these things just takes me back to the time I was here I feel almost like some of the people that were here in the mission will pass by us at any moment but everything is different...or maybe I just am.

     My new companion is Elder Fairbanks, who is relatively new to the mission. He just finished his training and the mission has already thrown various challenges at the poor fella between the horrible ingrown toenails and a bike ride gone bad he has already had quite the adventure. Just last change he crashed on his bike and broke his arm in 3 places...Ouch...but he wants to be a physical therapist when he grows up so I guess this is on the job training in many ways.
   
    Things have been insane this week, insanely busy and wonderful.  From Guate trips to visiting La Verde to having a Mission leaders meeting to getting soaked day after day this week.
    It kind of sets in just how old someone is in the mission when you can go out in the rain and keep your socks dry. Its honestly pretty funny. The days when my feet are still somewhat dry and few and far between. that and every one of my shirts seems to have a little bit of character to them.
   This week we had so much going on and miracles passing in the area. Though as normal, many problems came our way as well but these things were nothing compared to the great things.
   Monday last week was a little weird. One of the main ways that we travel here in Reu is using Tuc Tucs. However things have become a little dangerous for them. There has been a group of people extorting the tuc tuc companies and causing harm to those who do not comply.   Subsequently, all of the tucs went on strike for 5 days until the govt decided to take serious action for these men. This also meant a lot of walking for us and everyone else as the problem settled down.
   Just about every day this week it has rained none stop from 3pm until 7pm at night. This whole walking on water trick kinda gets old after a while, but at least everyone knows we bathe at least once a day in the rain. One of my cheesy jokes of the moments; people always ask us, 'How have you guys been?' as they see us soaking wet at their door-step.   We then respond,  "Wet! But that is OK because we brought a little shampoo with us and saved some time by bathing in the rain."   It is kinda my go to ice breaker at the moment and from there its pretty easy to get into the house and have a nice lesson. It even works on those who don't really want to let us in.

   Food is something very important and apparently not just to me. (Btw Mom I miss you and have always loved your cooking!) We have some golden investigators that really love food. You see last week we had a conference broadcast to all of central america. We brought quite a few investigators to this.  However, two of them after the conference seemed to just be avoiding us. The conference took place at 1-3pm which means we had to take a bus at 12 to get to the church building.   For almost the entire week we just couldn't get in contact with these guys. But finally on a rainy day we managed to get into their house and talk to them. Turns out they were kinda ticked there wasn't any food at the conference and didn't appreciate the impromptu fast......We told the we were sorry and invited them to go to the temple with the branch on Saturday. I think we fixed up the bridge we might have burned....I knew we should have brought some snack for them....I just thought it was my stomach talking (because we were fasting) turns out it was the spirit.
    There is a moment in the Best Two Years movie were Elder Calhoon gives a Book of Mormon to a man with his phone number and the guy says he is going to call him....We kinda had one of these exact moments...It was an awesome, once in a mission moment, that was more than incredible and I could not of been happier with its timing.  More on that later.

Well that is all for now!  I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!