February 1, 2015
Dear Family,
This week was a great week.
We have been working super hard, and even though it doesn't seem like it
to us sometimes, we are accomplishing a ton of things out here for the
mission. We have lots of big goals and
things that we are trying to put in motion, and it is a little bit
hard for me sometimes, because we aren't going to see the success
immediately... However, it is always great to see the little successes that we
have, that let us know that we are progressing.
One of the best success stories that we had this week was that we had
transfers, and that is always a very hectic time for all of us here in the
office, especially for us as the assistants.
Everyone seems to need something, and because there are only two of us
(and most of the time we are always together) it makes it a little bit hard to
be able to get everything done. In the
past, transfers has just been this huge, draining endeavour. This time it was very different. Everything just seemed to go more or less
according to plan, and everything was planned out to the letter of what we
needed to do. For me that was a great
accomplishment, because part of my specific role as one of the assistants is to
make sure everything for transfers is planned out. It was amazing, because everything was
finished and accounted for by 3:00 pm.
Hopefully that will make it easier for the assistants in the future to
be able to use all of the planning formats and things that we have come up with
to continue to have smooth transfers.
So on Monday, in the devotional that we always have, it was
Elder Van Katwyk's last time. He is one
of the Office Elder Secretary type people, and was getting transferred after
being there for six months. He was in
charge of the baptism records. We got to
hear his testimony and it was really good.
He was getting transferred to Bani to be a district leader out there, so
hopefully that all is going well for him now.
On Tuesday we had the actual transfer of everyone, and for
the most part things went really well.
We had one person who got mixed up on the times, and she got there late
and missed the bus that goes out to the South, but we just immediately called
to her area, set up an exchange with the companion that was going to wait for
her, and then set up the way for her to get out there as well with one of the
trainers and her companion. All of that
went really well. We also got to meet
all of the new missionaries who just came in.
There were only 9, and 7 of them were sisters. It was a really good group. They all seem really excited to work, and the
three latina sisters seem really prepared as well. One of them, a sister from Costa Rica, even
knows english perfectly, so that was really cool. Anyway, we had our meeting with them and it
all went great. Then, when all of that
was done, we just went and bought the pizza for the people who were finishing
and then just sat at the house waiting for the president to come back from the
temple with the people who finished....
We just kept waiting and waiting and waiting, with no word from
anyone. Turns out that they missed their
session at 5, and had to wait until the 7:00 pm session. Then we ate with them, and received a little
bit of bad news... The flights to New
York had been cancelled due to inclement weather. We made the plan for all of that, then went
to bed.
On Wednesday, we basically just spent the whole day running
back and forth to the airport with people, and it just consumed the entire day
with all of the traffic. It is always
interesting to see how airports work!!
For example, with a sister who was going home to Argentina, she had a
layover in Colombia. They told her that
she had to go through the immigration process in Colombia because her layover
was a certain number of hours, and it didn't matter that she wasn't immigrating
to Colombia, she still had to do it! We
called to the Travel Agent, and he was able to do all of that stuff on line, so
she was totally fine. When we finally
got home, we just crashed!
Thursday I also completed a small goal of mine... I have now officially visited every zone in
the mission. San Juan was the only one
that I had never been to, and we finally were able to make it out there. We were closing an area that was really far
away and not having much success, and moving the missionaries in the area to a
different area that needed to have 4 instead of 2. We got out there pretty early, at about 10:00
am. It was a three hour drive, and we
were hauling. It is about the distance
from Salem to St. George, so we really made some good time. We finally got out there, stopped at the Zone
Leaders house to drop some stuff off, said hi to them, and then keep
going. Something that really surprised
me about San Juan is that it was legitimately cold... What?
Yeah, it was a little bit chilly up there!! Any way, we got to the area that we were
closing, and started loading stuff into the trucks. We just had the two pick up trucks of us and
the Office Elders, and we just went to work.
We were loading in tons of stuff, and we realized (as the good
dominicans that we now are) that we could fit every single thing into the back
of those two pick up trucks from this house.
There were a bunch of desks, beds, mattresses, tables, boxes, dressers,
and suitcases, but we managed to make it all fit. We took everything apart that could be taken
apart and made it fit. We got them all
moved and started back to the capital.
It was a long day, especially because I had to drive over 600 kilometers
and help move, all in the space of about 8 hours. Needless to say we were drained.
On Friday, we started another small goal that we have, which
is to do exchanges with all of the Zone Leaders to help them to become even
better leaders. We started with the Zona
Central, which is probably the most difficult zone because it is right in the
heart of the capital. Every appointment
that we had fell through, so we spent the whole day contacting and teaching
when we could, and still ending up teaching 3 lessons on my end with Elder
Merrel, and Elder Peña taught 4 with Elder Mendez. It was really interesting, and we found some
people who are legitimately interested.
It was also really weird because I came across the first person that I
have ever met that is Atheist.... It was weird because he told us he was atheist and all of that, and I asked what he
was abstaining from being atheist. He
turned on me, asked me if I was stupid, and told me that being atheist means
that he does not believe in God.
Obviously I knew that, but then I told him that he was acknowledging the
existence of God by denying to believe in Him.
I told him that he was just abstaining from believing in God, but not
denying that He existed. It was very
interesting because he just got this really weird look on his face and said
that he had never though about that before.
We left a card with the number on it to call if he would like another
visit. We found a woman who didn't want
to accept any commitments because her husband wasn't going to change, and so I
basically quoted to her almost an entire movie from the life of Brigham Young,
who is one of my favorite prophets... A
little weird, but we just went with it!!
Overall it was a really good day!
Saturday was pretty normal, just trying to get everything
ready that will happen in the course of this next transfer. We have Zone Conference, Zone Leader
Conference, our training meeting, and all of that!! We also have an upcoming visit to our
mission from Jeffrey R. Holland on the 12th of March, so that will be
amazing!! Very excited for that. So we spent the day planning everything, then
we went to the store, bought what we needed, and came home and slept. Overall it was a great week!!
The most important thing that I learned this week was with
the little success stories that we have.
It is often hard to think that we are progressing because there are not a
ton of visible results, but we should celebrate the little things in life. We should realize that even the little
victories lead up to something greater!!
It is always amazing to me how all of that is prophesied in the Book of
Mormon, and that we can just learn more and more about as we study from
different points of view. When Captain
Moroni was trying to take back the lands that had been stolen from the
Nephites, it doesn't say that they went in and did it all in one day, in one week,
or even in a year. It says that through
the course of several years, they began to march, overtaking one city at a time
until they reached their final goal of having all of their lands back. It was amazing to me that over all of that
time, and all of those different battles, that they named ALL of the cities
that they overtook. They celebrated
their small moments, their small accomplishments, and they were able to finally
reach the end goal. I encourage you to
put goals, and then put smaller goals to reach the larger ones. Celebrate the completion of a goal every
day. Look for ways to become better, and
I promise that the Lord will bless you.
Well, I hope you all are doing well. Love you lots.
Love,
Elder Garrett McEwan
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