God uses broken things

Love the family more than brownies! Now I realize I always end up saying things about food but it is what it is. I made some brownies the other night and they were perfect. Being dense and chocolaty, I was looking forward to it all day and it was a good night. Turns out making brownie waffles is harder than it sounds though.

Walking to church with Santiago

I would say this was a interesting/crazy week but that’s how every week has felt for the past month. On Thursday I went on intercambios to a part of our zone called La Union. I feel strange to be with people that have about the same time as me and Im a leader. I went with Elder Luna who is from Mexico. It was a good time and they work hard out there. The lower side of the whole time was when we made a good contact and began to teach, but at the end of the lesson the thirty year old man´s dad walked up the street. He definitely had the spirit of contention, and the saddest part was that he lacked the proper education for what he was saying. In the end he claimed that I was a bad prideful American who had come to this humble and faithful country to bug the people. He then said elder Luna and Mexico were more righteous than I am and the States because Mexico is close to Jerusalem, or at least closer. I had a good time on the exchanges and I have really come to love Mexican Latino culture, they are the best.

Elder Oldroyd and I are going through a weird phase where we have lessons in the afternoon but lacking at night, usually it is the opposite. We want to work harder with the members and less actives since neither of us know them very well even though they are the key. You contact to get investigators, you work with members to baptize converts. It is like quantity versus quality. 

Saturday Wadri got baptized. He is a great guy and really funny and we just love him. It was hard to get people there since it was in the morning but it went great. 

Sunday was Stake Conference so we saw a lot of missionaries from our zones and also some of the members from my old ward of Buenos Aires! They are just the best and even though I was only there for two and a half weeks we were growing pretty close, I took a picture with my favorite member family.

 

Buenos Aires coro (Dominican slang for gang)

The ward mission leader really misses me which makes me feel a little good, is that bad? That Sunday we got a big rainstorm for a few hours. We get forced to stay in houses because Dominicans treat rain like the plague; to get wet is to risk your life, dizque. We were with a less active and his family, they are Haitian and has a cute little brother. I really want to learn Creole, aka Haitian, which is a very basic language but i don’t think it would be worth it. One part of our area is on the other side of a stream/river and if the little wood bridges get flushed away we have to walk to pavement route which adds an extra 30 minutes. With our trusty 24 year old member Santiago who loves to leave with us we forged through rain an mud. At one of the river crossings the bridge got washed away but a drunk man offered to carry us across on his back, this is at 8:00 in the dark. We were going to make Santiago do it first because we were sure than man would fall in the river, but we were merciful and so we just walked to another point and up a mountain of mud.

 

Cute Haitian kid

The rain has continued to come down and the other day badly flooded the river but, tender mercy, we were on the good side of the area the whole day. We are going to help a new investigator rebuild his cement patio which the rain partially destroyed tomorrow. He filmed us offering to help because he used to think we were spies and now he has proof we serve people, I hope we get famous so we can teach more people. 

A few interesting people we are teaching are Ignacio, Espedito and Robert/Yanela. Ignacio is sincere and enjoys the lessons and will read often which is normally the first big obstacle, getting people to read what we leave with them. He is a good guy and I think will get there with time. Espedito is an old man with a nice mustache. He is progressing in steps, step one retain that we will be passing by in the next few days, step two remember what we said in the lesson five minutes ago, step three what did we say a few days ago about what a prophet is etc. It really helps me focus on keeping things simple and using examples to help. I really like him and I think he likes me to. We joke around with him and lately he has been asking when we will be returning. Robert is a security guy at a club and an interesting guy. His way of talking and acting is just funny and he likes to joke. I think he thinks we don’t speak Spanish and also that we are Jehovah’s Witnesses but we are getting there.

I had my first zone meeting the other day and it went well. It has helped me realize more of what the mission and missionaries are like. I just want everyone to work hard and be good.

 

Mailman/zone leader duties

In the zone meeting I liked what we talked about. I used a quote from Patricia Holland about how God uses broken things, and Elder Oldroyd talked about not being content with things the way they are. I Love the metaphor how it takes broken soil to raise a crop, how it took broken Peter to lead the church of Christ and how it takes broken missionaries to help broken people. I really believe that is true about all things. It is when we are broken that we realize what is important and how to improve. It is something natural, celestial that from small things, broken things come the grandest things. Remember Christ was broken for us. I love the song Rock of Ages or Roca de Eternidad which I kind of rediscovered in the mission. I like to sing/hum it. In English I love the part that says that “he was cleft for me”, and in spanish the part that says “por mis culpas y maldad que no podria yo pagar.....solo en ti he de confiar.” The reason we need Christ and why he is our Christ is because he was broken for us and rose to become so much more. 

Con amor,

Elder Andres Guillermo Cocinero-Campos