(Elder Hixon and Antonella)
Had some pretty neat experiences this week, all relating more to my companion. The work is moving on, but I feel like this change, my companion maybe is my number 1 "investigator" you could say. And we definitely made some progress!
Okay, that sounded prideful and ridiculous. Little background and then I´ll explain :)
This transfer....has been pretty tough. Not a lot of work, summer time (so nobody is in town), I´m without my trainer and leading the sector, which makes me feel responsible for any lack of success we´ve had.
And my comp is a punk. He´s pretty rude to everyone, fights with people during door contacts and tells them they are wrong and "in the last day will realize it". Some missionaries may struggle to find the faith to drop an investigator, I think I´m struggling to have the faith to accept that we have had investigators drop us (and I will be short-sighted enough to be tempted to blame my companion). Literally, this guy does not want to be here, does not want to ever come back to Chile, and does not want to remember these last 2 years ever. And has the mouth of an Argentine Sailor!
So things have been pretty wild :)
This Friday, we were reading the Manual Misional, and he started to scoff at one of the rules and said something to the effect of "these rules are ridiculous. Nobody trusts us. I detest rules". Not being the first time he´s said something like that, I got kind of ticked. I was sick of this kid hating everything! I closed my book, told him we were going to read some scriptures, and began searching for Alma´s words on the reasons we have laws. (blessing of paying attention in Seminary, I remembered a corny video we watched about this and it helped me find the chapter). We read Alma 40, and I started giving him some palo, telling him that if he didn´t want a Savior then he didn´t need to want rules, but if he had the ganas to testify to people that we have a Savior, then he better have the ganas to follow the rules and laws set by That Savior.
I was ticked.
He got quiet, and then responded quietly. "I don´t care about rules. I never have, and I never will. I don´t care if I´m condemned in the next life, I don´t care about anything. I don´t. I just want to leave from this stupid country and do what I want."
I don´t know if it was the way he said it, or the fact that he said that, but I realized in that moment how wrong I was handling the situation. This guy was lacking something huge if that´s the way he felt, and I felt pretty sad when he said what he did. I was then the quiet one. I thought and thought and thought, said a silent prayer, hoping to know what to do. Attempting to go out in the streets that day had long since lost any purpose. We would not accomplish ANYTHING if we tried to work as representatives of The Lord that day, there was something else that needed to be done. I remembered that the week before, he had told me that he loved American Football, and we made plans to play it sometime on a P Day.
Football!
"Okay dude. Listen. I´m sorry about what I said. I didn´t know that´s how you felt, and I´m sorry that that is how you feel. These are the last 3 weeks of your mission, and these should be good weeks that you always remember. And they´re going to be terrible if you feel like that. You´ve worked hard for the past 2 years, and you deserve to feel good about what you´ve done. So maybe today we can try something different. Let´s throw on some street clothes, go over to Mal Plaza Sur, and I´m buying you lunch. After that we´re searching the city to find an American Football, and then I´m gonna teach you to how to throw and catch a football. Te parece?"
I threw him some of my basketball shorts, my converse, my football shorts, sprayed him with my cologne, and told him we were gonna be the best looking Gringo Football Players in Chile. And so we left, and had the best day I´ve had this whole exchange.
I called President that night to tell him about what we did, and while he said that I can´t ever do that again, he thanked me for what we did that day and thanked me for following The Spirit. It was a great day.
And there´s been tiny miracles throughout this week that I have been very grateful to see. We throw the football in the mornings (sly way to get him to wake up, wooo!), and there has definitely been a change in our companionship since. Today he bought me pizza and a couple little things from Santa Lucia, and gave me this giant jar of change he has been saving since the beginning from his mission. Which is a huge blessing because I´m broke from the Mal Plaza Sur Trip. Hahaa.
That´s it! Great week. Grateful for this Gospel, and the chance we all have to help in the work of The Lord. I don´t think there is any greater happiness that how I felt seeing something small that I did help move The Lord´s work a little bit farther a long. And I know we all have opportunities to experience that happiness every week.
Love you all! I have a testimony of this Gospel.
-Elder Hixon
Bowling on Pday
Elder Albarracin in my shoes (not his comp)
Contacting
