The craziness continues…

Howdy all!
     This has been probably the craziest week of my entire mission. It started out fairly normally. We had P-day like normal, but we had to stay with the zone leaders because we had a mission conference the next day. Then we had the mission conference tuesday. That was really good, but took from about 8 to 4. We were supposed to be dropped off in our area right after that, work for about two hours and get picked up by the sisters in our district to make it to a lesson with the boys who are getting baptized so I could get all the information from their mom for the records. However, the zone leaders had a less active that offered to make them dinner and they just had to go pick it up, so we made a quick stop there. They left us in the car while they went in for “five minutes” to go pick up the food. Five minutes turned into about an hour and a half (me and my companion were) just chilling in the car the whole time. When they finally got back, they said that they needed to go in because the less active family was having some serious problems that they needed help with. Cool. Except I was already fifteen minutes late for the appointment with the sisters, and I had to get that information in order for them to be baptized this week. So the zone leaders said they’d drop me off at the lesson. Except they had left the car running the whole time they were in there and the battery was flat. It took us a while to get someone who would help us jump the car, but we finally got it working and called the sisters. They said they had pushed back the appointment because we needed to be there and that they’d pick us up at the chapel. So after getting lost, crossing mission boundaries, and making it to the chapel, the sisters took us to the appointment that was supposed to have happened an hour earlier. The rest of the night went pretty well after the lesson, the sisters dropped us off at the zone leaders flat again because I had exchanges with them the next day.
     Wednesday. We had a super productive day planned out, I had helped my companion plan for a really productive day in our area for him and the other zone leader when the spanish elders asked : aren’t you coming to the service today? The zone leaders had no idea there was service planned, they had been there when the member had asked them for help, but it was to the spanish elders in spanish so they had no idea what was going on and the spanish elders forgot to translate the message to them. So because we needed the car to drive to the service, we had to bring my companion and the other district leader with us before we could drop them off in our area. The service ran a bit longer than we expected, and we didn’t have enough time to drop them off in our area before we had to be at a lesson they had planned for an investigator who is gong to be baptized soon. So all four of us went to that lesson and taught that investigator. By this time it was dinner. One of the ward members had invited all the missionaries in the ward to this dinner, so we all four went. Dinner was great, but one of the sisters left their bag, so after dinner, we had to go get it back to her, and it was way away from our area. So we decided that because it was close to the zone leader’s area, one companionship would work there while the other delivered the bag. We got there and we couldn’t get her the bag, so we decided that all four of us would work in the area, but due to some strange circumstances, we switched companions. So I was with the zone leader I had already done exchanges with. We had a decent little proselyte, then we headed back to their flats for the night, leaving me exchangeless for the missionary I needed to have exchanges with, and no missionaries in our area for 48 hours now.
     Thursday. Thursday was exchanges with some other elder in my district. As far as it goes, it was a pretty normal day except they have so many hills in their area and we were on bikes and I’m way out of shape.
     Friday. Friday I was finally back in my area (hadn’t been there for four days, the spot on the zone leader’s floor is more recognizable as my bed now). We had a good day of work, but somewhat confusingly, we visited some people who we can’t tell if they’re members or investigators. They say they’re members, but they know nothing about the church, and claim to have been members of a whole bunch of other churches, they aren’t on our records (well one is, but not as a baptism, but a baby blessing) but the other missionaries in our ward say that they are members, but I think they may have only met with them once. We then had weekly planning to close off the day.
     Saturday was the baptism. We had been told that the zone leaders were out of the area for the day, so we couldn’t get a ride with them. We tried to catch the bus down that way, but we missed the bus by two minutes, and it runs only every forty, so if we waited we’d be late for the baptism at which I was doing the actual baptizing. So we called the sister missionaries and asked them for a ride. They were in a panic because they were running late and the boys needed their white shirts for the baptism, and they had no idea how to get to where we were and the traffic was an absolute nightmare. They did eventually get us (only after about being killed making risky moves to get there on time) and we made our way through the worst traffic I’ve ever seen in the area. We made it to the baptism a couple of minutes late, so I had to change into my clothes and miss parts of the talks given at the service. We finally got to the font, and I couldn’t remember how it was you hold the people to do the baptism. After fiddling around for a little bit, I figured it out and baptized Whidia and Tumai, and I’m pretty sure I had divine help pronouncing their islander middle names. It was really awesome. I then had to wait while they changed and I had to take their wet clothes and change myself, so I missed most of the talks after the ordinance. We then had the strangest array of food I’ve ever had at a baptism, cheetos, grapes, chop sui, crab salad, snickerdoodles, and this really good shrimp curry type thing. We then went and had a barbeque with some members who have a son who is getting baptized next week and they wanted us to teach him everything and have asked that one of us do the baptism.
     Sunday we had church, we got dropped back into our area, visited the family who we’re not sure if they’re less actives or not, and then talked to a man for about two hours at another less active’s house (he’s also a less active (we think), but not from the area, knows very little about the church, but had some really good questions. )
Baptism of Whidia and Tumai

I love you all, hope you’re having a great week and GO USA!

Elder Shelton

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