Opposition in All Things

September 13 email:

This last week was insanely busy. Thursday I had to do baptism interviews in Grecia for the hermana misioneras. We ended up doing divisiones with the zone leaders since their planned divisiones with another area fell through (the bus route was closed). Elder Nelson and Elder Hoyt ran some errands for us in San Ramon in the morning as Elder Logan and I left for Grecia. I did one interview as Elder Logan did the other. It was interesting working with Elder Logan again after being companions. Some things have changed, others not so much. The four of us (Nelson, Logan, Hoyt and myself) spent the night in Naranjo. I slept on the tile floor as usual. I miss carpet. I think I´m just gonna throw myself out on the downstairs carpet for a good half hour when I get home. I might even sleep there at some point. =P

Friday morning Elders Nelson and Hoyt took off for San Ramon to fijar our baptism for Saturday as Elder Logan and I went to San José to pick up some legal documents for a wedding we had planned for Saturday. That turned out to be a frustrating mess. From one office to another, not once, not twice, but four times before we finally figured everything out. We treated ourselves to some Taco Bell since it was close by, and I realized my body just doesn´t deal well with fast food anymore. Not that that´s a bad thing. =P
Elder Logan and I continued working in Naranjo for the rest of the day. I met quite a few people that just made me depressed and frustrated to talk to. One lady went so far as to say she´s happy with life and doesn´t want any blessings from God. This is after having told us how her not-husband beats her and how they´re about to be evicted from their rotting wood shack.

Saturday morning I got back to San Ramon. We played some early morning soccer with some of our investigators, after which we stopped by to drop off our dirty clothes with the Hermana Mildred. Mildred had made us a surprise breakfast of flapjacks, which we thoroughly enjoyed. The rest of the day didn´t go as planned. I can honestly say I´ve never seen Satan working so hard to stop a baptism, but he was definately against us every step of the way. The wedding was planned for 3 p.m. At 2:30 p.m. the wife-to-be was not to be found and no one in the family was ready to go to the church anyway. They asked if we could wait until 4 p.m. We called the lawyer, who had another wedding to do at 4:30 and said it would be impossible to wait until 4. So we had to wait until 6 p.m. We ran back to tell the family, after which we had to call all the members and tell them of the time change. Then came our ropa bautismal problem. The hermana who was getting baptized is..."bigger" than those we usually baptize, and the issue came that we had no baptism clothes that could fit her. We found 2 dresses, one that was about the right width, just not long enough. We had the Hermana Mildred had one to the dress to make it just a little longer, and it was ready just in time for the wedding/baptism.

But even then Satan didn´t stop. First there was issues with the man´s ID, but we got over that issue and started the wedding. The couple had invited several family members to the wedding, and after they were wedded we began the baptism service. As one hermana spoke on baptism, a drunk cousin of the family apparently didn´t like what she was saying and yelled out something I didn´t understand through the drunken slur. The son of the family led the man outside as we finished with the talks and continued on with the baptism itself. I had the pleasure to baptize the Hemana Laura, and following that Elder Hoyt and I sang a duet of "How Great Thou Art" in spanish.

After all was said and done, Elder Hoyt and I felt exhausted and drained. We had had a few other issues with the branch presidency at the baptism as well, all of which I discussed with them yesterday after church. Luckily, the district president was with us. The man was so stubborn and so set in NOT doing things as they should be that I told him straight out if he didn´t listen, I´d call President Gálvez right then and there to set the record straight.

It´s been a long week, but the month isn´t over yet and we still have a goal to meet. We´re gonna be running ourselves dry, but we found a new family that´s just incredible and we´re working to get them all baptized by September 25th (it´s a family of five). The work keeps going despite the opposition. That´s all I can really ask for.

Today were just chilling with the district here in San Ramon. About 2 weeks ago Elder Hoyt and I found and carried home and huge stalk of bananas, of which has been all we´ve been eating ever since the bananas ripened a week ago. There´s still a lot of bananas and they´re soon about to over-ripen, so we invited everyone over to the Hermana Mildred´s house to make banana cream pies and banana smoothies. =P It´ll be good to kick back and rest for a few hours before we start killing ourselves at 6 p.m. tonight with all the work we still have left to do. =D

I love you all and I hope you have a great week. Time really is flying. I just hope I can finish what I´ve started here before hitting the end.

Tu Hijo,
Elder Nunie