Before I go on though I want to talk a little about my last day in Mariano. At the end of the day we tried to go by all the converts one last time. We tried Gaston first but unfortunately he wasn´t there so I didn´t get to say goodbye to him. Then we went by Martin and talked with him for a bit. That one wasn´t that hard for me, he was in the park playing soccer so basically I just took a picture with him and that was it. Then we called Karina to see if she was home. She wasn´t so I just told her that I was leaving in the morning and wanted to say goodbye. When I said I was leaving she told me that she would hurry home right then and to meet her in her house in half an hour. We got there and she made us eat dinner with her. At the end I tried to share a scripture but it turned out to be pretty hard. She read the scripture and I got about 6 words in before I started to cry. I had definitely not planned on crying (it was the first time i´ve cried on the mission). I pretty much had lost the ability to talk so luckily Elder Abrams helped me out and did the talking. After that we had to go to familia Flores. I was determined not to cry again but they made it really hard on me. We sat down in there house and the mom started going off about how much me and Elder Pietz helped them and how we were persistent with them even though they were going through a lot of challenges and that we will always have a special connection because I baptized their daughter. She said a lot more stuff to which was not making it easy for me haha. I was able to keep it under control tho until Gabriela started crying and that was what finally did me in. We kinda just sat there for several minutes while everyone cried and the mom and Gabriela made me promise about 10 times that I wouldn´t forget them and that I would come back to see them. Luckily Elder Abrams helped me out again and shared the scripture this time. They also gave me a gift bag with a bottle of lotion and socks in it haha. It was all they had and it is now my favorite gift I´ve ever gotten. I also gave them a photo from the baptism and signed the back of it and they immediately went and framed it. So basically it was kinda a rough night.
Luckily I`ve already met a ton of amazing people in my new area. I would say overall this area is even more poor than my last one, and the people here are really friendly. We´re on bikes by the way, because the area is huge. It was really weird for me at first because I was used to walking all day, and I haven´t rode a bike in a few years. I also found out that riding a bike uses some different muscles than walking because my legs are pretty sore. The bikes are pieces of crap and I´ve already had to spend a lot on repairs haha. In fact, after this I have to go buy a new chain because mine snapped last night. That was an adventure because it was already dark and we were about an hour walk from the pensh. So basically I had to skateboard push my bike all the way back, it was very tiring. There was an added level of difficulty because we got hammered by rain all saturday night and sunday morning, so most of the streets were basically rivers. That reminds me that I got absolutely soaked on the way to church yesterday because I rode through what I thought was just a big puddle but it turned out to be a huge ditch and I fell off and ended up standing in water up past my knees. The bikes are definitely a work out because most of the roads are dirt, and have a ton of rocks and holes.
So saturday night we had a cool experience. We got a text from president for everyone to go by old investigators that had attended church in the past that could be baptized this next saturday. So we were trying to go buy this one family but we ended up getting kinda lost and it was already getting dark. We tried asking this lady that was standing outside her house where we were. She didn´t say anything and just went inside. A few seconds later this guy walks out, and says that he had been waiting for us. We were really confused because we didn´t know this guy at all. It turns out he talked with elders in Moreno over a month ago and that they told him they would send some other elders to his house. Well, we went along with it and asked if we could come in and visit with him. He was like yeah, come meet my family, I´ve got 7 kids. That definitely perked our interest. The second we walked in the door we got swarmed by little kids hugging us and going crazy. To make a long story short, we taught a really good lesson and now have a baptismal date with the 3 kids that are old enough to be baptized. (Turns out the dad was baptized when he was really yound and hasn´t been active since.)
Well I gotta go. We´re moving to a different pensh so we gotta go pack up everything...again. Oh btw, apparently our mission baptized the most people in February out of all the south american missions, so that´s pretty cool. Anyway, have a good week everybody.
-Elder Shelton
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