April 13, 2015

Well to be honest, I can’t believe that this week went by so quickly.  I honestly feel like every transfer goes faster and faster.  So, Cristian has been stubborn.  We have had appointments and he has not been there.  We had one lesson in the middle of the week but we only had about ten minutes to be able to teach him.  FINALLY last night we found him in his house and taught him.  We shared with him Elder Holland’s talk from conference.  It applied SO well to him.  He really feels like he has no hope of a better life and we have promised him SO many blessings and explained baptism SO well and he knows that he needs to be baptized but he is fighting against it.  We think it might be something to do with his friends and him being "embarrassed".  We invited him to really humble himself and ask God and he said that finally he is going to do it.  So today we are going to commit him to be baptized for the 26th of April (A pretty nice pre-birthday gift).  Hopefully all goes well.

I had an intercambio with Elder Pinillos (Peru).  We entered a house and this 60 ish year old lady was SUPER drunk.  She kept pointing her finger at us and told us to be quiet.... haha as we were trying to leave Elder Pinillos stuck out his hand to shake hers.  She just through her arms up and tried to rap them around his neck to plant one on him.  We tried to explain to her that we don’t do things like that as missionaries.  She backed up, thought for a second, than turned and came straight for me to do the same. hahaha so keep an eye out for those snakes.

So this week I learned a ton.  I have been thinking a lot about conference and there really are too many good talks to be able to focus on just one.  Some of my favorite points were "twas I, tis not I", that we should fear and trust in God, and our complete dependence on the Savior. (and I liked all of the sweet talks about family and marriage.... there are A LOT of people here who aren’t married)  I feel like sometimes I try to work everything out in my head and I just have too many things going on at once to be productive.  We need to just turn everything over to the Lord.  We had a zone conference as well that the zone leaders gave us.  One of the Sister Trainers, Hermana Andrade, (she is the Brazilian who knows the lady you baptized 30 years ago Dad).  She is in my district! Cool huh?)  quoted "work like it all depends on you, and pray like it all depends on the Lord".  

We also had an interview with President and it went well.  I feel like Satan has been working really hard to make me feel comfortable.  He tries to make me feel like it is okay that I am not baptizing and makes me lower my expectations.  I know that numbers don’t mean a successful missionary.  But I also know that my purpose is to invite others to Christ by helping them enter the waters.  I am trying hard to not compare myself to others and to not judge or criticize.  I am going to focus on myself and what I can do to be a better disciple of Christ.  Yeah it sucks to not baptize, but it sure is awesome to be a missionary.  I love what I am doing and there is nothing better! I have learned that I may not know everything and I may not speak Spanish perfectly or teach like a pro, but I know this Church is true and I know that I represent Jesus Christ.  Like it says in 2 Nephi 3, prophesying about Joseph Smith "his weakness shall be strong in his faith". I know if I try to be more like the Savior that the success and the personal progress will come.

Today we have a zone activity (AT LAST!!!!) This is the first time that my zone or district has achieved its goals therefore our first activity.  We are going to go to the gardín botanico (botanic gardin?) I don’t know it should be a good time! Before the activity I am going to go buy an adaptor so I can send some pics.  So pictures will have to wait until next week.... sorry! 

Love,

Elder Crofts

Raul & Jean Diaz Navarro, New Chile Vina del Mar Mission President starting July 2015