Last Week of my First Cambio

Hey everyone! Hard to believe that it is already September. Before we know it, it will be October.

Things are still well in Tlaxcala, we had a pretty exciting week. On Tuesday we had to go to the Oficinas again to do some things for our Visas. They took our fingerprints and had us sign some papers. Real fun stuff. However I did get to see my old MTC district again which was fun. I had the opportunity to talk to my MTC comps about what their areas are like. Everyone is still doing well.

Elder Hartvigsen, September 1, 2014

This week I also had another intercambio with my district leader Elder Benavides. So Wednesday after District meeting he and I came to my area and Elder Delgado and Elder Vela went to their area in Chiatempan. It was really good to work with Elder Benavides. He is a good missionary who really likes to talk to everyone! We had some really good contacts that day, and now we have hopefully some new investigators. We'll see when we drop by all the addresses we received and see if they are real or not haha. Also when I was with Elder Benavides we met with a member to help out with some questions about verses in the Book of Mormon. Turns out she wanted us to explain the Isaiah chapters. Luckily I didn't have to explain much. If you think trying to understand Isaiah is hard in English, try trying to understand it in another language!

That day was fun. It is always good to gain perspective with different missionaries. Also that day we taught two new investigators, and we taught them again on Saturday. They are really solid, and have great spirits about them. On Saturday when we taught the Restoration, we had a really spiritual lesson. It was great, and really reminded why I´m out here is to help people come unto and learn of Christ and his gospel. These two seem really prepared, and I´m so glad that we have the opportunity to help them. They are very accepting, and we actually found them while we were contacting. We have another investigator who we are starting to teach that had  been taught by the old Elders that is also really strong. So that has really brightened up my week.

We also received some bad news this week from a different Investigator. We had felt good about the lessons we were teaching her, but we received a text from her saying that she didn't want to continue talking with us. She also mentioned that it was because she thinks we are just trying to increase the numbers of our church. So that was pretty sad for us that she didn't understand that our purpose as missionaries is to help other come unto christ, and not just to promote the church.

We also found out whether or not we have cambios (changes). Elder Delgado and I are staying in Atempan 2 for this change. There was actually only one change in our entire zone, one of the Hermanas in the other area of our ward (Atempan 1). So we will be getting a new Hermana, who actually might be a brand new missionary. That will be good, and I look forward to at least another 6 weeks in this area.

Sunday was a very interesting day. When we arrived at the capilla (chapel) we found out that there was no electricity and that one of the cables that connected the church to the electricity grid had something come undone. The Hermana´s also had a baptism after church and since there wasn't any power the pump didn't work to pump the water into the font. 

So, in order to fill the font, we ended up getting some buckets and opening the hatch where the reservoir of water was for the font (at our chapel the font water is recirculated). So we had to draw water with buckets in a really tight space and pass it through a window to fill the font. So we did that for about an hour and still didn't have much water in the font. 

Luckily the two that were being baptized were children, so in the end they just had to basically lay down in the water when they were baptized. It was a pretty unique experience. It was good that we were able to make the baptism happen, it seems like there is always something to complicate our work.

Sunday Elder Delgado and I also spoke in Sacrament meeting. That was pretty nerve-wracking and really put my Spanish to the test. It went well though, I actually spoke longer than my companion did. We also had to speak very loudly because there wasn´t power for the microphone.

All in all it was a good week. Some pretty high highs, and some pretty low lows. Anyways, love you all, adiós!

-Elder Hartvigsen