The Office - Week 22

Howdy!
Well, as you notice, we jumped week 21 and went straight to 22. Looks like I missed a week back and Christmas time, but now we´re back on track. Crasy how time flies though. It feels like just yesterday that I got here in the office. I now feel like I know how everything works, and what needs to be done, but at the same time, I still just feel like that young newbie office Elder that just barely showed up. It´ll be weird to leave and get back to the campo again. The weeks I have left are going to fly by for sure.
On that note, this was kind of a strange week for me. As a missionary, people always ask you how long you´ve been out for and stuff like that out of small talk. A while back I got to that kind of weird moment, where it was a lot easier to say how little I had left instead of how little experience I have in the field. And so that brought me to the strange realization this week of how little time I actually have left. Yesterday was the 3rd which leaves 6 short months before Dad should be showing up. Thats a very strange feeling, and I dont think I like it. Wow. How the time has flown. Once again, I kind of just feel like I´m still that newish missionary that I was a year ago. Obviously I´ve gotten totally used to the routine of getting up, wearing missionary clothes all the time, speaking Spanish, and not being around my family, and so I have grown up a lot. But I just can´t believe how little is left. To a lot of people, 6 months is a long time. Half a year. But from an old missionaries standpoint, that isn´t much at all. 4 and a half changes. One last area. 6 more fast sundays after tomorrow. Wow. Thankfully I feel like it gives me more animo to work. Some people get all homesick and lazy in their last little time. I think for me, it helps me see how much more I want to do, and how much I can do to make the best of what´s left. I think life as a missionary just really gets you thinking about the value of time. Your time is limited. Whether it be the time in each day, the time you have to study, or the time to work hard as a full-time missionary. I actually think its really good, because you see how no time can be wasted. That whether you´re a missionary or not, you really shouldn´t ever just let time go by without making something out of it. Good lessons for life.
Anyways, that wasn´t really my week. You try your best not to spend too much time concentrating on time, and instead, you try and put that time to work. This week was a little bit different of course - changes struck the office again. But, we tried to make the best out of it.
Sunday was a really nice day. Our investigators made it to church for their second time. Without us needing to pass by their house and pick them up or anything like that. They really liked the lessons and I feel like they definitely felt the spirit. That was cool because I think that that is the first time that I´ve had the same people going to church in months now. We´ve gone through quite the dry patch in the last while, but we´ve been doing everything possible to get out of it. Moving forward with faith and diligence and waiting for any miracle that the Lord is willing to give us. So they are both currently preparing to get baptized on the 11th. The mom, Maria, isn´t totally sure on what she wants to do yet. She likes the church and knows that its good, but is just kind of afraid to really commit herself to something new. Her daughter on the other hand, Maria Luz, seems quite set no that date. She reads and prays and feels like the church is true and that this is what she wants to do. So thats great. We´re doing everything that we can, visiting them, getting them to meet members and form relationships with them etc etc. to try and help them to be ready for this date. Awesome.
Other interesting activities of Sunday. My companion finally decided that he´s fed up with having a girlfriend back at home. lol. Its kind of been distracting him lately and he knows that the work here is more important from anything like that going on back at home. So. Hes decided to get cut it all off. So thats been fun. Helping him think of nice ways to let her off easy. Its sure to be a disaster. Luckily I don´t have anything like that that I´ve had to worry about. All I´m going to say is that all of those kids out there should watch out - because its just not worth it. lol. At least from a bystanders viewpoint. Anyways, the cooler part of the story is that with all of his stress and confusion, Elder Thomson did something that I thought was really cool and was humble enough to ask for a blessing. And so during our comp study time I was able to give him a quick blessing at the house. Something that I still don´t really feel 100% comfortable doing. But it was actually a really great experience. Its such a cool feeling to be able to serve your fellow man with that authority of the Lord. It was a special experience for the both of us. I think it helped him feel a lot better and at ease, and it was actually something really good for me too. So that was pretty cool.
Monday was pretty normal. We got changes info that night. It was my last boring, already-know-whats-going-to-happen kind of changes as it was quite clear that me and Elder Thomson would be staying in the same place for the next change. It did have some exciting changes though. Elder Anderson (the assistant) and Elder Pearson got their wishes granted, and have been sent out to ¨whitewash¨ an area together. Thats something that doesn´t happen very often. Also, an old oficinista, Elder Short, got called back as the new assistant. Poor guy. lol. That doesn´t happen very often either. Good stuff. We got to have a good freak out happy dance moment when we saw the changes. haha. But yeah. They left and now we´re back down to 4 oficinistas again. For 3 more weeks before my replacement comes in for his training. Its kind of nice to have less numbers. Less crowded and less opinions to deal with. We´ll sure miss Elder Pearson though...
Tuesday we had one of the easiest change days ever. Only 7 people showed up. We didn´t even have to go pick them up because they showed up scattered and President was able to fit them in his vehicle. There was no rushes, no panics, no lines, no things forgotten. They just sat in the waiting room, did what they were told, and we got them through the list of things to do with tons of time to spare. It was really quite strange. lol. In the end, me and Elder Pearson even slipped out and tried to make a visit to a sick member at the hospital. Unfortunately we were miss informed about visiting hours, but hopefully they think about how its the thought that counts. But yeah. Everything went surprisingly smooth.
The next day wasn´t even that bad either. I had to show up and hand out tons of money to reimburse taxi rides and stuff like that, but unlike changes passed, I had enough experience to not make any big mistakes or let the small things trip me up. In the end, everything went really smoothly. The only bad part being that I misplace a receipt that I kind of need... dang it. But I gave a photocopy of it to the guy that gave it to me, and so hopefully I can just get a copy of his copy and fix that problem. Thats something great about the office - it helps keep you humble. You would think that after enough time here I would be past making dumb mistakes, but oh well. Its all about trying your best, doing everything you can, and fixing any problems that you make. It takes some BAD messing up before you will get fired as an oficinista. lol.
Thursday we went to the airport to drop the dead Elders. There were only 2 Elders and 2 Hermanas. Once again, the easiest change ever. That didn´t mean that it went without problems though. Nothing ever goes 100%. Oh well. We got it done and I´m pretty sure that they made it home in one piece with all of their luggage. lol. Thats how it goes though. Anyways. Otherwise the day was pretty average. There were a couple of things that had me a little grumpy by mid-day, but then a really nice belated Christmas letter showed up and I felt a lot happier. lol. That night we had a Family Home Evening with the 2 that are planning to get baptized. It meant extra walking and planning to have the activity at a members house, and bring another family from a ways away to be there and meet them, but I think it was totally worth it. We got to talk a little about the plan of salvation. It was kind of funny because we accidentally got 3 very talkative ladies in the same room, and it was then kind of hard to teach the lesson we planned. But at the same time, we couldn´t complain too much because they were working on forming friendships. Also fun was that in the middle of the lesson this flash flood hid. I´m sure I´ve mentioned it before, but the drainage system in this country is terrible. I thought it would be better because we are in the city, but that sure wasn´t true. The house we were at is by a main street and looking out the window, I could see that the street was honestly 2 feet deep with water. There was a full scale river right in front of the house. Pretty fun. Fortunately it slowed down by the end and we managed to not get too wet.
Yesterday was pretty tranquilo. Honestly we were pretty pooped from changes. I thought that the exhausted feeling that usually follows changes wouldn´t be as bad this time, but it hit igual. Fortunately we had a fun activity with the young mens to go out and give away pass along cards. That was nice because it gave us a little more animo as we really wanted to set a good example for the kids. They´ve been really excited to work ever since they got back from EFY and so we´re trying to take advantage of that and keep them excited to be missionaries.
Todays been really nice. Being back at 4 has made things really easy. We got here, did some email time, went and ate, Elder Meryhew picked up some new shoes for soccer, we played some piki volley and now we´re wrapping things up. Might even be time to write a hand written letter or two, take a nap, or hopefully get some groceries...
As for the letters you all sent. Thanks for the photos. The guys thought they were hilarious. You can send me my embarrassing stuff whenever you´d like. Still makes me proud. haha. Where is the new Costco at? Closer to our house?? Hope so. After being in a place with such limited food options, Costco sounds heavenly. Sounds like a fun mutual activity. One of the girls should write and tell me more about it. Good stuff. Glad that the basketball is going good and you´re still working hard. Basically, glad to hear that the week went good and that all is well. I only minorly freaked out when you said that you were signing up for classes. Hopefully you can get it all figured out without too much hassle. Right before I left I left a list of all of the classes that I need to take. Hopefully you can find it somewhere. I basically had everything figured out so that all you´ll have to do is pick the times and teachers. Shouldn´t be that bad. But yeah. Sounds good to me. It just adds to the already crasyness of how little time is left.
Anyways, hope things are great. If you ever have any questions let me know and I´ll try and throw in the answers for you. Thanks for everything and for all of the love and support. Things are awesome here and I´m doing my best! Keep up the great work! Love ya!!

Elder Humphreys