Hello Everyone!
If you are reading this, and if you are as invested
in these emails as I know you are, then you might be asking yourself
some questions. And it is for this reason that I have taken the liberty
of preparing the following Q&A thing:
Q) I
really love these emails, literally they are the highlight of my week,
how come I didn't receive an email last week, or the week before?
A)
Well, I could come up with many excuses, for example, "I ran out of
time" or "we were just so busy" or "there's a long/funny/embarrassing
story in this email that took so long to write that by the time I
finished writing it last week there was no time to send it." I could say
many things like that, but I won't of course. Instead, I will say an
apology. And so it is with that preface, that I say, most sincerely, I'm
sorry.
Q) How much wood would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
A) A woodchuck would chuck all the wood he could chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood.
Q) What did that have to do with anything?
A) Absolutely nothing, I hope you enjoy the following email.
We
had a good couple of weeks though. To catch you guys up, actual
transfers happened. Elder Bess and I both are staying, thankfully. The
interesting thing is that the Sisters with whom we were sharing the
Eldorado Ward, both of them got moved out. So now Elder Bess and I cover
the whole ward, which includes everyone they were teaching. So to do
some math, if Elder Bess and Elder Oswald were teaching 10 people, and
the Sisters were teaching 12 people, when the Sisters leave, that makes
22 people that Elder Bess and Elder Oswald are teaching.
So it's been busy with teaching and scheduling and trying to contact people.
One
girl we're teaching now, named Heather, is actually getting baptized
next week. We've met with her a couple times and she's really awesome.
So that's exciting.
So that was our week, then Saturday
happened. And Saturday was a lot like a bowl of Cocoa Krispies. It
started out really awesome but then pretty soon it kind of turned to
mush.
We had a great day
planned. We went out right after planning to contact all of the people
we haven't been able to contact yet, including a bunch of people with
potential interest and people who were previously taught. It was gonna
be so good. Right as we were leaving though I started getting a
migraine, so I took some medicine, and I was just not in the mood for a
migraine, I was so ready to have a great day and I wasn't going to let a
migraine ruin that. So I insisted we keep going. So we bike around
contacting a ton of people. We knocked on one apartment looking for
someone named Yomi. A man answered and we said something clever like,
"are you Yomi?" He said no, so we asked "Does Yomi live here?" And the
man sort of paused, and then from somewhere inside the apartment we here
a voice loudly whisper "No!" The man then informed us that Yomi doesn't
live there. It was pretty funny though because the man at the door
started laughing and was like, "Yeah I know y'all probably heard that."
Anyway
though, so we kept trying to find people. One guy said it wasn't a good
time and we should come back later. When we asked when, he said
"never."
Meanwhile, my
migraine was getting worse and several times I thought I was going to
throw up. And Elder Bess frequently asked if we needed to go back. I
still insisted to keep going. And I was glad I did.
The
next complex we went to, we were looking for a family that the Sisters
were teaching, we had texted the mom and called a couple times but no
answer to either. So we knocked on her door, and she was excited to see
us! Like it almost caught me off guard how positively she responded to
us and to the idea of meeting with us. So that will be an awesome family
we will hopefully start teaching soon. The only tricky thing is that
they're super busy from the looks of it. But yeah that right there made
it all worth it.
Then we went
across the street to the next complex. A complex to which I hope to
never return. First of all, it's literally a maze. The buildings were
all one story, and they were separated by narrow cement walkways. And
they also had cacti placed here and there along the buildings. And so we
are biking through this maze of apartments and we come to the apartment
we are looking for, and as usual we get off of our bikes before we go
up to the door. Now, to paint a picture, I was on this walkway, on my
bike. The apartment is to our right. And so I was intending to put my
bike just next to the apartment wall. Well as I said, we get off of our
bikes, but I get off of my bike on the right side of my bike. So my bike
is now to my left, the apartment wall to my right, I walk my bike up a
little ways closer to where the doorway is, but still along the wall.
Then, thinking it better to have my bike closer to the wall, I, my back
now facing the wall, my bike in front of me, proceed to pull my bike
towards me, sandwiching me in between me and what I thought was the
wall. What I soon found out however, was that there was a little
something in between me and the wall. And that something was a lovely
little cactus. A cactus, that I actually saw earlier, made a mental note
of, and for some reason promptly forgot about when I walked my bike
over to it. However, the cactus was sure to make its presence known once
more, by sending friendly little reminders all up the back of my legs
and rear end.
When I first
realized what happened however, I actually laughed. "Oh how funny," I
thought. "I just backed into a cactus." And from looking at the cactus,
all I saw were the long big spikes, and I assumed that I had been poked
by those, and that although it was painful, it was over with. Well I
tried walking, and suddenly I wasn't laughing anymore. And I realized
that every time I moved my legs, I was being re-stabbed by tiny cactus
spikes. It turns out that what I didn't see were the thousands of tiny
invisible hairlike spikes that were actually stuck onto me and my pants.
And they hurt so bad. I just want to make that clear. I am just so
amazed at how something so small can be so painful. I don't even know
how to describe it.
But
anyway, at that point Elder Bess concluded that it was time to go home,
with which I agreed. So we walked our bikes, or rather Elder Bess
walked, I hobbled, out front and waited for our Zone Leaders, who we
live with, to pick us up. Then I had to get into the car, which is a
different story.
Once
we got to the apartment, I hobbled some more until I came to the stairs.
And since bending my knees felt like, well, a thousand tiny cactus
spikes in my skin, I used my considerable upper body strength and the
stair rails to lift myself from one step to another without bending my
knees. And finally I was safe in my apartment, except for the cactus
spikes that I didn't know how to get rid of.
So
we called Sister Robinson, the Mission President's wife who is also like
the Mission nurse, and she said she'd Google it and get back to us. So
meanwhile we ate lunch. It was grilled cheese. That's beside the point
though. Soon we heard back from Sister Robinson and she said that
according to various credible sources on the internet, such as people
who have internet access and have happened to post things on the
internet, apparently if one rubs Elmer's glue on the area with the cactus
spike in it and lets it dry and then pulls it off, the cactus spike
comes with it. And the only other option is tweezers, which is pretty
much impossible because they were tiny, invisible, and on areas of my
body which made it quite difficult to use tweezers with any degree of
accuracy.
Anyway, we didn't
have any Elmer's glue so we texted some members and they said
they'd bring some over. So that was really nice of them.
While
waiting for them to get there I decided to shower, in hopes that the
water might magically convince the spikes to leave. That didn't work too
well. A couple may have fallen out, but I'm not sure.
Then
the member came with the Elmer's glue. And there's not really much
detail to go into other than that I followed the process I described
above. It was definitely not something I ever expected I'd do on my
mission, or in my life, that's for sure. Also, I guess I imagined it
would be like in elementary school when you put the Elmer's glue on your
hands and peel it off for fun. It was a lot more painful than in
elementary school. It actually worked though. So yeah that happened.
It
was a really great lesson to me. Because I think before this experience
I had an attitude of, "I want cool/funny stories no matter how I get
them." And now I have an attitude of "Be careful what you wish for
because before you know it you're gonna be finding out some previously
unimaginable uses for Elmer's glue."
Well, after that I really feel like I need to share a spiritual message.
2 Nephi 31:20, in the Book of Mormon says,
"Wherefore,
ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect
brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye
shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the
end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life."
I
just love that scripture. I know that as we continually seek Jesus
Christ, we can come to know Him and our testimony of Him will be
strengthened continually. And something that stood out to me especially
this last time I read this, is the very last part. That our Heavenly
Father says, as an eternal declaration, that if we do those things,
pray, study the scriptures, strive diligently and humbly to come closer
to Him, we will have eternal life. And I just want to leave that
testimony with you. That as we continually, every day, continually,
build our faith in Christ, we will eventually have Eternal Life.
Til next week, and I actually mean next week!
~Elder Oswald
