Craze

Elder Caussé of the Q of 70.

Monday Morning Empty Colombo with mission car.

HEY EVERYBODY.
Glad you enjoyed the epistle last week. It had been quite a while since I had attempted to write in scripture voice (I guess that’s what it’s called), but I figured it was something so crazy and so detailed that why not write in the same voice as the people who wrote other crazy important things?
I hear there’s a bunch of crazy attacks against the church from the general Hollywood population because of the Prop 8 stuff. I also hear that the Catholic Church along with the evangelical churches are defending us. Weird. I heard there’s a bunch of messed up stuff on TV.
So as for the happenings this week, I went to sleep Wednesday night and basically woke up on Friday. I woke up a few times throughout Thursday, but I had a crazy fever going on like a radio station (102.1). Elder Barrett ended up being on the phone with Elder Croshaw for a while during lunch to figure out how to do all the stuff that had to be done while I was out of it. It sounds like it all went well. I’m not exactly sure what he all did, but nothing has blown up yet.
Friday we ended up doing office work until late, and then didn’t teach Portuguese class but helped President get some things ready for the zone conferences with Elder Caussé, who arrived that day.
It was really cool to have Elder Caussé here. It’s funny. Working with so many people all the time, especially President, and having so many things to do while all the big stuff is going on kind of desensitizes you to having somebody from the Seventy walking around. We did pizza and worked on the Christmas present for all the missionaries (copying and labeling the music compilation CD Sister Terry put together) while the first zone conference was going.
Saturday night was Elder Barrett’s first time practicing to drive stick, and it was pretty fun. It was hilarious having Elder Wardenburg teach him (he already taught several people to drive stick) but when it wasn’t working I would explain it again or have Elder Barrett do something that would make it click in his brain. For instance, he couldn’t really figure out what to do with the clutch while starting from a stop. So to explain the catch point, I had him start from a stop just by letting up on the clutch slowly. Anyway, we did all of this while listening to some great Christmas music. It’ll be a while before Elder Barrett is driving everywhere.
Sunday was great. We had no investigators in church and nobody else we had been working with, so we just went to Sunday School – my first time in a long time having a good lesson during the second hour of church. Gospel Principles is great, but Book of Mormon is so much more interesting.
Monday was our turn to attend Zone Conference with Elder Caussé, and it was really good. Really really good. President Terry was on fire to start off the zone conference giving a great talk about using the Spirit in the mission. It’s so true that without the Spirit, it’s completely pointless to try to do missionary work. Afterwards, Elder Caussé gave three sessions of training: one about planning, one about preparing people marked for baptism, and one about finding. It was so good to hear him tear down a lot of the dumb habits missionaries get into to just pass the time. For instance, Preach My Gospel says to have 10 contacts with people outside of normal work that are out of the ordinary every day. In our mission, we go for 20. A lot of missionaries (myself included) had in the past been counting regular contacts for these contacts. Then, instead of trying to contact people who would be likely to respond, missionaries don’t really look too hard for anybody who looks or feels like somebody who would respond to them. So, you get 20 quick rejections, say you’re “doing your part”, and then blame the Lord for not putting elect people in your path. It was very refreshing to be reminded that “fora-de-normal” contacts should just be targeted – not just talking to people who don’t have any reason to talk to you besides the fact that you talked to them first.
Elder Wardenburg’s future is still uncertain. The doctors have been saying for him to go home, but he has been on a treatment plan that seems to be having a good effect. It doesn’t look like he’ll need surgery, but it looks like he’ll need so much time to recover that it will almost be impractical. Either way, he has three more weeks allotted to stay in the office. He’s had what you would call a great attitude about the whole situation (he’s enjoying his time), but it’s not an attitude that really drives him to get a whole lot done outside. He’s a great missionary – he doesn’t give up a good opportunity to do missionary work – but he hasn’t really been seeking opportunities very much.
Elder Barrett is not really too happy at all still to be in the office – expectable. But he’s abnormally bitter about it. It’s not like he’s only confused as to why he’s in the office when he’s physically capable of being outside – he just doesn’t think he’s office material and doesn’t think he can do it. I know he can, obviously – it doesn’t take too much to do all this stuff, and it’s gotten a lot simpler since I got here. But I think his attitude has spilled over so much that he doesn’t really ask a lot of questions in order to find out what’s going on. He usually waits for me to start explaining something before he tries to understand what’s going on. I’m not one to push him to do it – he’ll figure it out on his own.
I’m going to go work on my Christmas present for everybody – I haven’t had nearly enough time nor money to buy and ship things to everybody. Expect wonderful things.
I have no idea where my extra toothbrush handle is. If you’re not going to send one for Christmas, don’t worry about it. I can always get one for Valentine’s Day or some holiday in that timeframe.
Amor.
Elder Lobo