Week 32- Santa Ana

This week I have been thinking about myself as a boat. I knew that I was at sea and that at one time I had a hole and the water was gushing in and I had to make the choice to patch the hole or sink the boat. I made the choice to fill the hole because I knew that the journey ahead was going to be long and treacherous but that it was possible. I talked with an engineer and filled the hole but I felt as if I had only put a band-aid on the problem.  The boat had a sensor that told me I was sinking but the sensor was wrong. Many times in life I think we get distracted with false alarms from a sensor. We look at things and we think we are going to sink, but really we just need to do a quick check to verify that we are ok, to verify that there is no hole in our hull, to make sure that we will remain afloat in whatever trial that will pass through our paths. I am grateful for the Master Mechanic, our only Savior, Jesus Christ and for the power of His Atonement, without this every one of our boats would be resting lifelessly at the bottom of the sea of life. I know that through Him we can mend whatever hole, big or small, and even if torpedoes and icebergs strike us, we can still remain afloat. I have learned this week a lot about the complexity of the Atonement and how every one of us, with our boats beaten by sin and affliction, can be restored to a perfect state, as if it had never happened. 

Do you have any baptisms planned for this week?  No for this week we don’t have any. We had 3 people to be baptized the 25 and they all fell through, one didn’t come to church yesterday and the other separated with her husband because he was trying to go illegally to Mexico and was deported last week.  Are the people you have helped baptized doing well?  Yes all of the people we have baptized are still active.  

My week was very good and very interesting. I don’t have any money because I spent 25 bucks printing pictures on Monday. How are you doing with your companion and have you moved yet?  Yes we moved back to our other house but it isn’t that fun to sleep in a bed, I miss by hammock.  I will upload some of the pictures from the week, there are only pictures of a chair that is really comfortable that I want to make. 

What did you do for p day?  Nothing. We washed clothes and we cut our hair. My comp doesn’t like to do that much for p day.  How hot is it there?  It’s really hot, and humid here.  How much does your daily coconut cost you?  They cost 12 limperia ($0.56) Are mangos is season yet?  Yes they are in season. There are so many, I have heard that in a few weeks there will be baskets of free mangos in the streets. There are at least 10 or 12 mango trees per block.  Are you making smoothies with them?  We bought a colander or strainer to get all of the fiber out so we can have a really smooth smoothie.  Yes they really eat green mango here and it is good. Depending on the mango you can make a juice that is good. Some of the mangos are sweet when they’re green some are sour so you have to find the right mangos. 

How is R. doing?  Yes he is doing better but still has a cast.   Sometimes when people give us food we don’t want, we give it to him.

This week I stood in the door of this man’s house for 2 hours as he told the this story.  This man was working as a successful mechanical engineer for CLOVER (they make cooking oil and shortening). He had a wife and 2 children. Well he went to a party that his wife said not to, he got a little drunk and then some girl hit him in the face and he was mad, he even said that some evil spirit was in him and he began to destroy everything. He beat up his wife and destroyed the building, throwing chairs and tables. Well he did so many things that they had the possibility to imprison him for the things that he did to his wife. The wife wanted to press charges for all of these things and divorce him. Well he wasn’t so happy so he went and found himself a lawyer. His lawyer said that he had the rest of the week to fix his relationship with his wife so that she would drop the charges. So he did what the lawyer recommended he went to his house got out his pistol and shot 3 shots into the front porch and then did this every day and every night on all sides of the house.  He told his wife if you don’t drop the charges I will kill you, he also told her that it would be her fault because the kids wouldn’t have a place to stay, they wouldn’t have family and if he was going to go to jail for life he might as well kill her because it wouldn’t make a difference for him. Basically he scared his wife into dropping the charges. But this isn’t even a good story because I don’t have the time to give all the detail of how he did it. 

I hope that you guys will have another good week. I don’t know what has passed with the time because I feel like I have only been in the mission 2 or 3 days. Love you all and I am so thankful for all of your support.