Dearest friends and family,
I’m a person who loves to learn. Despite the fact that
sometimes I found myself frustrated at busywork assignments and busywork
teachers, I loved learning in high school. I also loved following my own
interests outside of the classroom during the last 18 years of my life. I’ve
always enjoyed finding, treasuring and incorporating new knowledge into my day
to day life. For this reason, the mission has been a little bit of a switch-up
because, while I’m taking a little vacation from my classroom pursuits, I’m
very much still learning: learning valuable life lessons. I’m learning the Spanish
language, I’m learning how to live and take care of myself, I’m learning how to
cope with thoughts and emotions, good and bad, and also I’m learning to respond
to many of the “real life” situations that have come up in the last few weeks.
In the past 7 days my course of learning has taught me many
new Spanish words and phrases. For example, “cuanto dinero le llevaron los
ladrones?” And “fue un hombre flaco, con cabello largo y acento Colombiano?”
And finally “porque ustedes no cerraron la chapa?” The answer to the last one,
by the way, is because we don’t have a chapa (or deadbolt as we say in English).
I’ve also learned how to fill out a bunch of church forms that I’ve never seen
before and how to look for a new house. Overall, I’d say that it’s been a
pretty good week for the learning.
Let me go back to the start. There are 4 missionaries living
here in Tulcan (my companion Elder Miranda and I and one other companionship,
Elder Morales and Elder Loveland.) I arrived here about 12 days ago and the
first 7 days were actually quite good. Elder Morales had to travel to Quito for
meetings about some upcoming changes to missionary work around the world (we
can sleep in on p-days, yay!) which left the other 3 of us here to work
together. Last Monday’s P-day came with a trip to the Tulcan fruit market and
juice bar. I discovered that the guanabang and mora mixture makes the most
delicious cup of juice in the history of humankind. I also discovered that many
of the “cranky” fruit vendor ladies can be talked down 50-75 cents on our fruit
purchases. The following Tuesday and Wednesday were good, pretty normal.
Working in a trio is always fun and we visited a place called “Cali-burguer” -
you know, “Cali” as in Cali, Colombia and “burguer” as in burger to someone who
hasn’t seen the word spelled correctly before. On Wednesday afternoon, the 3 of
us took the 4:30 bus to Ibarra for a next-day conference. Three and a half
hours later we arrived in Ibarra, dropped our bags at the zone leaders’ house,
and left to work and find some food. This night was one that I’ll never forget,
not for any special reason, but something really struck me as marvelous walking
the misty streets of Ibarra, Ecuador with people from Guatemala, Bolivia, Peru,
and Idaho – all of us walking, talking, and making the occasional joke in
hard-core Spanglish. The conference the next day was really uplifting and
interesting. After our meetings, we left the chapel and bought our bus tickets
back to Tulcan…arriving back at about7:30pm.
I knew right away that something was very different and very
wrong about our house as we unlocked the door and followed inside. The first
thing I saw was all of the contents of our emergency preparedness backpack
thrown all over the floor. Walking in a little further, I realized the desk
area was completely disheveled with all of my things scattered everywhere and
all of the drawers opened and emptied. It wasn’t good and I panicked.
Immediately Elder Miranda realized his wallet was gone with $150 of personal
money. I noticed my new raincoat was gone and immediately picked up the phone
to call President Murphy. We shared a short conversation about how it looked
like the thief used force to get past the lock and probably knew that we weren’t
going to be in the house the previous night. We decided that we should do a
quick look around and then go talk to the owner of the house who lives next
door. As we walked further into the house, it just kept getting messier and
messier and more and more violated.
The one big hope that I kept in the back of my mind as I was
looking around the tumult was that I had carried all of my really valuable
things with me to Ibarra (camera, electric razor, personal debit card). That said,
the thief managed to capsize my suitcase on to the floor along with every
article of clothing in the 2 closets. I can only imagine what they thought when
they found my healthy stash of mosquito repellant. We talked to the owner of
the house who was no help at all. She walked up the stairs, examined the mess,
and told us that it was our fault for not locking the screen door in front of
the wood door. To be honest this was the exact opposite of what I needed to
hear and I couldn’t decide if I was more disappointed in the thief or this
woman who seemed focused on squaring blame on us. When she said this, Elder
Miranda and I packed up a day of clothes and our remaining valuables to go live
with the other Elders.
On the way out the door, we talked to our other neighbor who
shared some info about a suspicious Colombian who was asking what time we
usually come home at night and also about some strange noises she heard around 1am.
All in all, it’s been a pretty odd experience. I’m really not set back too much
by it, but it is really eerie and uncomfortable to think about someone going
through all my clothes. I didn’t lose anything that can’t be replaced and I’m
really trying to stay positive about it.
In the mission I’ve had many moments of wake up calls where situations have forced me to take a step back and reevaluate what is important in life. This has been one of those moments and it has taught me very powerfully that, even though some days are hard out here, I am actually extremely proud of the experiences I’ve lived so far. The photos I have that represent those experience are extremely valuable to me. I’ve felt humbling and warming emotions of gratitude for the prompting I had to bring my camera and memory cards to Ibarra. I’m also extremely thankful that the only things stolen were things of the world. And even though it’s a little insulting and humorous that they took the See’s Candy grandma Liz sent me, I know that I can replace what was lost. All in all, it’s been a great opportunity to learn to cope with another “real situation” of life and I’m very thankful for the chance to use this experience to strengthen myself emotionally and mentally.
Sincerely,
Elder E
In other news...
- The robbery was a setback but to be honest it really helped me bond with the 3 other elders here in Tulcan. We went looking for a new apartment but the owner lady just went out and bought a nice dead bolt for us today. I guess we’ll see. (Adam commented in his letter to us that the mess left by the thief was actually the bigger bummer.)
- Adam’s companion, Elder Miranda, is from La Paz, Bolivia and is the eldest of 2. He loves Adam Sandler and Japanese cartoon shows like Naruto. Adam has also enjoyed getting to know Elder Morales, who is from Guatemala and worked at a Walmart Call center so “he speaks near perfect Spanish and English.”
- Remember that ward party I talked about last week – the one I sang at upon arrival into Tulcan? Well it’s been causing us a bunch of problems as missionaries. It went past 1am and had some slightly off-color acts like a rap-dance battle thing and a magic show we didn’t see. This all happened in the chapel, by the way. So, this week a lot of our investigators had problems and questions, especially about the magic. It’s been kind of a mess.
- In a side letter addressed to “family” Adam wrote: It is interesting how the mission never really gets easy. Some days are really good, some are harder. But I can always feel Satan trying to get into my thoughts. I just miss you guys. I love reading your letters every week and sometimes I just wish I could be there for the things you all tell me about. Don’t get me wrong, I am so happy to be serving Heavenly Father and I wouldn’t change a thing about where I am or what I’m doing. But sometimes I miss the little moments with you guys. For now I know God wants me to learn how to be happy on my own and I’m learning how to do that every day. It’s an important lesson. You guys know how much I always love being surrounded by people and friends but when I come home I’ll be just as happy with myself and Jesus Christ.
 |
| Not how they typically leave the apartment... |
No comments:
Post a Comment