Good Morning Monday

¡Buenos Días! We have an mission-wide activity in San José today so I´m writing a bit earlier than usual today. First I´m gonna start with a more private note on what I said about last week. I´m not sure why I´ve always faulted confindence in myself. It´s nothing that anyone has ever said to me, but as far as I can remember I´ve always dropped myself a few steps below the crowd. It´s just something I´m going to have to work to change, and the mission is the best place for me to do that. I like the idea of taking up that challenge of doing something dificult for me every day. That´s a good way to shrug off the fear I might have. For the last week any time I´ve been contacting or knocking doors, and I feel a little unsure, I just say to myself "No Fear" and do it. If I ever train in the mission, I´m gonna make that the number one thing I teach my "kid" as we call it. That and one other thing I´ve been thinking about this last week...

Whew, this week has flown by. Some weeks fly, others drag. I have yet to figure out how or why. =P Well a lot happened this week. Well kind of, it might be better to say I´ve had a lot on my mind this week. Wednesday my new zone leader Elder Lee came to Cañas, so I was on divisions for 2 days yet again. Wednesday I was with Elder Gonzalez again, and right off the back he told me I was teaching everything for the day with little or no help from him. I was all game for it. =D I felt pretty good about Wednesday. Yeah, most of our citas fell through but the lesson we did teach were great, an I felt really good about the Family Home Evening we had with some members and our baptism, Andres. That night was the Costa Rica versus U.S.A game, so trying to work was pretty much useless. Andres invited us to watch the game with him and his family, and we took the opportunity to visit will all of his family for once. Andres´ mom is inactive, as is his aunt and older brother. I feel good when I hit it off with a family really well, and I definetly won their confidence. =) Too bad the U.S. lost the game. =P

Thursday is a different story. I was with Elder Lee, and I got to see what kind of missionary the man is. He´s only got a year in the mission, and although we got along great, our focus and point-of-views here in the mission coudn´t be more opposite. Elder Lee has good intentions, but after all is said and done, he´s working for numbers, not for the people. At least that´s how it came across. Here´s why I say that. We started knocking some doors after our first 2 citas of the day fell through. We found this older Nicaraguan lady and starting teaching outside her house. Well she wasn´t paying attention, didn´t hear when we asked questions or anything. So as I was about to wrap up and leave, Elder Lee cut in. This lady had been agreeing with everything we´d been saying without listening to any of it, so Lee decided to have some fun with her. He flat out asked her that if our church is the true church, would she be baptized. Now that´s not a bad thing to do in other situations, but with this lady not listening to anything we said, it didn´t serve any real purpose. Lee did it to comply with our "1 baptism challenge a day" that HE challege us to do. Well the lady said yes to his challenge, and he put a fecha with her for the 27th of this month.
When Elder Maradiaga and I passed by the next day like we promised, she told us not to come back.

The whole day with Lee was just him asking how our numbers for the day were, and it got me thinking about some things. In the training we had with Elder Cook of the Twelve back weeks back, he recounted to us how Preach My Gospel came about. Before PMG, missionaries memorized the lessons and gave them by rote. President Hinckley, when he realized this, immediately set out to change this, because the lessons weren´t meant to be memorized, but to be taught by the Spirit.
The pre-written lessons were meant to give a guideline of how and what to teach, but in time they became things to memorize. The numbers and goals we have now are meant to help us work to our fullest, but in time missionaires have turned their focus from the quality of their work to the quantity.
I first started to see it with Elder Tagliaferri, who, when we were faulting lessons, would go to the park and teach some drunks. Elder Lee made me think about it even more. Like I said, the numbers are meant to help us work harder, but there are a lot of missionaries here who forget that. And in fear of getting their heads chopped for not making goal, work only for numbers out of that fear. And to that I say:

I AM A MISSIONARY OF JESUS CHRIST, NOT OF NUMBERS.

I´m looking for those who have been prepared to recieve the message we bring, and I´m working for QUALITY, not quantity. That´s why we´re here in the first place. We were called to serve not to help with a mission´s numbers, but to invite people to come unto Christ.

This is something I´m not going to forget. When all is said and done, numbers don´t matter. All that matters is the people you helped.

Okay I have to jet. I love you all and I hope everything is good and well back home. I´ll write again next week with fotos from today´s activity. =) Take care! I love you all!

Your Son,
Elder Nunie