Pressing Forward

March 3, 2014 

"Well," I thought as I stared a way too dry Baptismal font. "I bet this is what getting left at the Altar feels like. " One of the hardest feelings I've faced during my mission is when, at the very last minute, someone decides not to get baptized. But, that was just the icing on the cake after a really, really long week.  Probably the hardest in my whole mission.

It started out with my companion going to Lima for three days, a crazy lady on the street yelling at me and threatening to call the police because apparently she lent my old companion an umbrella last month while I was in meetings and she never
brought it back, my Zone Leaders deciding to randomly change my area limits and take out the part where all but one of my Investigators with a baptismal date live, my District Leader missing my one other Investigator's Baptismal Interview, sending my Investigator late to work and then getting in trouble at work and then making him question baptism and the date falling through, and then my Zone Leaders turning around and burning me because I don't have any Baptismal dates right now, crying in the middle of church, then being on Lock Down all Sunday afternoon. Just great.

Sometimes it is just SO hard to be positive. After the whole problem with my Investigator, my District Leader saw me and knew I was mad, he swears I have the worlds most obvious angry face, and asked what had happened. I tried to kindly remind him of an Interview that he forgot about and at first the kind part worked, then he started laughing and my kindness went away.

The next day, he brought a coconut to me to try to make up for it, then threw a water balloon in my face. What a smart kid. Anyone that knows me well, knows that when I am angry or sad or stressed out, apologies or encouraging words don't do a whole lot, but after a good laugh, everything seems to be okay.

In the end, lock down was kind of fun! Sunday was a really crazy Peruvian holiday where they get really drunk, dance with Machetes, and throw water balloons, paint, alcohol, and pee at people in the street. Oh, Peru.  So, our President decided we shouldn't be out in the streets in the middle of that.

After church and lunch, we spent all day Sunday watching Church movies, writing letters, eating, and laughing. It was actually a nice little break from such a hard week.

Sometimes, you just have to remind yourself that it was never meant to be easy.  I know that we are only weak at times so that God can make us strong.

Well, I should have forty more minutes of Internet time, but the Zone Leaders are yelling at all of us saying that we have to leave right now because we have to go to the bank or something...I think this mission has turned into a Monarchy! Haha.

I had a lot of good things to tell you about as well, but looks like they'll have to wait!

Talk to you next week!

Love ya! Hermana Simonson