Beto's and Missionary Work

Heyo.

So this week... I'm going to attempt to employ some positive language here but, if this week was a breakfast item it would be one of those outrageously sized breakfast burritos from Beto's. They sound good, they look pretty good, they even smell okay sometimes, but halfway through you find cold potatoes, uncooked eggs, some of Beto's sideburn hair, and a deep fried band-aid. And then, just in this moment of great alarm, the screaming of your upper digestive tract reminds you that you're now 4500 calories closer to an early grave in the sea of low density cholesterol. And that's all I have to say about that. Suffice it to say, things did not go as planned with the group of prorrogas in Lima.

But in other, less artificially preserved news (< double entendre), we're seeing a lot of miracles in PeruLand. President had a phone call with Elder Waddell a while ago and Elder Waddell told him we're one of the top five most rapidly growing missions in the world. Intense. President is thinking about raising our yearly goal from 1800 to 2000. or 2012 baptisms in 2012. We're stoked. We'll see how things go in the next few months. It's weird how things stack up though. In the same week we finish one of the most successful months ever (during a 4-week change month) we also have four missionaries show up with crazy cysts, three of which have to be operated on, an endoscopy that reveals exactly nothing, migraines, infection-causing contact lenses everywhere we look, pinched nerves, detached muscle, expiring Chilean residency, unrenewed Interpol paperwork, non-refundable Lima flights for "personal paperwork," lost patriarchal blessings, even more lost personal identification, missed international flight connections and a missionary going on his 5th ingrown toe nail in as many months. Doesn't it ever just rain?

Fear not little family. I am happy. Just a little worn. Luckily we've got Conference, which by the way has been killer so far. So we rest on our sword for a while and then do work. For Conference we go watch the first session with President and Sister Turk. President makes eggs and some monster pancakes with fruit and ice cream and other cardiovascularly responsible things. So we're pretty well set up for conference weekend. It'll be good.

An excerpt from an extremely typical conversation in the life of a missionary:

Me, "Hey guy, how are you?"

Guy, "Oh hey, I'm good."

Me, "Awesome. So you're not at school/work today?"

Guy, "No, I'm just kickin it."

Me, "Well hey we're missionaries. Can we come in and teach you how to live a happier, more meaningful life?"

Guy, "Mmm I don't really know. I have to wash my pants..."

Me, "Well, pants are important. Is there anyway we could help you wash your pants and then teach you how you can live with your family forever?"

Guy, "Ooo I don't know. They´re really dirty. Besides, I need to make some rice."

Me, "Okay, well it sounds like you´re really busy with rice and pants right now. Maybe we could come back later to teach you how you can be freed from the long and short term effects of sin."

Guy, "Well, that sounds good. I'm almost not really here that much though(direct translation). Sometimes I leave my house."

Me, "Well, I bet we could plan a time in the future when we can both be here."

Guy, "I don't know, sometimes my door is closed (more exact words)."

Me, "Okay well ,what could we do to solve that one?"

Guy, "Well, I could leave it open if I knew when you were coming."

Me, "Sounds fantastic. Let's do that. So when should we come by."

Guy, "Wait, are you gonna come here?"

Me, "We were hoping."

Guy, "Oh well I have to go to Cajamarca for..forever so... it could be hard to find me... almost I'm not here very much."

Me, "I see. Well, good luck with your pants."

… I wrote you a letter forevs ago and never sent it. I’m gonna write in some excerpts from it right now.

                “Hey Seester,

It’s me. Elder Brian… Dude, today kinda sucks. I don’t feel super good and … (blah blah blah) … people bug me I want to go watch soccer and eat McDonalds or something. These are the days in the mission you don’t ever hear about. Probably because they pass and you don’t ever remember them (I´ve actually already forgotten this one). Anyways, I was thinking about how at home on such a day I would whine about it to you and then start being really overly cynical and laugh about it and move one. Little harder in letter form but I’mma give it a try. So in order to understand the situation you have to understand that my companion, thinks he’s a Navy SEAL. What does that mean? That means he gets hopped up on protein shakes every morning and does overly-aggressive exercises while grunting loudly, the purpose of which appears to be nothing more than learning how to grunt more loudly than the day before. Probably to frighten his enemies before he pounces upon them and gives them an old fashion eye gouging. Now the secondary problem to this is that he seems to mistake every Jehovah’s witness or Adventist we find in the street for a Soviet Terrorist whom he must defeat Jack Bower style with arbitrary biblical arguments while I just stand back and try and keep him from going for the eyes. It’s like I’m living in this ridiculous God’s Army pun gone much, much too far. So I don’t like that. I also don’t like when he burns helpless Hermanas or old ladies in the street for having the audacity of owning an opinion without checking with him first to be sure it coincided. What I´m saying is I miss my last companion and wish I could put on a few verses of “Where is the Love” and have Fergie’s dulcet tones soothe his angry heart. This is mainly all I have to whine about. …. 

 So there’s a letter you never got. Most of it anyway. Disfrútala.

Elder Brian

Don't Underestimate the Details

Last week this missionary known for some obedience issues called me at like 11:15 at night to tell me he needed to go to the clinic. I dragged myself out of bed, took a cab over there with him and sat there in the clinic in the world’s most uncomfortable plastic lawn chair and talked with under qualified doctors while this other missionary promptly fell asleep in his hospital bed. And that’s where I stayed, until about 6:30 in the morning. At which point I was told that he just had some bad gas. I remember thinking, “Is this really what I came to Peru to do?” And that really bothered me. Till my dad wrote me a letter. Like 3 hours ago. Turns out in his mission he spent a lot of time in the office when he was a missionary in Korea. He had no time to proselyte and spent most of his time fixing the mission car to get ready for trips throughout the mission for training. One day before a trip he spent the whole day doing tune-ups on the car and thought, “Is this really what I came to Korea to do?” I hadn’t told him anything about my clinic story before he wrote that letter or how I was feeling in the office, but I think he saw it coming. And he explained how now he can realize the importance of his missionary service; both the time spent serving investigators and the time spent serving missionaries  I think we underestimate the details of our lives. I’m realizing a little more all the time that the experiences and circumstances of our lives are guided for eternal purposes. I believe that we are always divinely guided. So don’t underestimate the details of your life. Aight? That’s all I have to say about that.

January 7th

Hey Fam.

It seems I defeated you again this week in the email race. Hmm. You know when you're starting an essay or something and you have absolutely no idea how to get into it? So you just sit and look at the screen for several minutes rereading the first line. That's what I'm doing right now. Usually it's caused by lack of thesis. Could be the case.

This week didn't really have a big over riding theme. Elder Andersen went up to Huamachuco this week to do some work visits. I was super bummed I couldn't go. I'm not allowed to leave Trujillo in case something goes down. Lame. But get this. Last time I went on a work visit with Elder Andersen we went out with the East zone leaders. So I go off with one zone leader and he with the other. As we're walking down a street on the way to a reference I hear someone yell my name from a window. Which is weird cause I'd never served in that area in my life. Then I see two of President Salinas' kids from Huamachuco come running up to their big gate thing on the street. Hadn't seen them in like three months. I guess they were living with their aunt to go to school down here. Anyways, coincidence is God's way of staying anonymous, right? 

So it was just Elder Richards and I in the apartment for a couple days while Andersen and Davila were in Huama and Vera and Escobar went to Chimbote. (pause here while I go read the email you just sent me.) Ha... fat cheeks. But mine were so much worse. not even comparable. But still funny. So then Richards and I go into the office all excited because we figure we're gonna get done and get out proselyting for once. False. One hour into the chamba the power cuts. Pretty common occurance here in Peruland. So we go downstairs and discover our little electricity meter that´s set in the concrete all aflame. Don't ask me what was on fire, everything in this country is made out of concrete and brick. So the door guy gets a screw driver and just starts poking randomly at things through the little opening where you read your meter. Well turns out that wasn't actually the most effective plan so we popped the box open and flip the breaker.... long story short Elder Richards and I have to sit in a dark office all day waiting for the electric company to come. It was terrible. But then the next night we got a really awesome reference in our area. Things tend to balance out. Except for Peruvian building codes. 

In other news. We got our surgery done this week. Pretty uneventful. I pretty much play doctor like non-stop now though. After a lidership consejo last week I just got swarmed by missionaries with all their plethora of strange medical questions. I literally stood there and turned in circles from one person to the next writing down medication names and answering weird questions for 30 minutes. It was madness. And then once I escaped it was just to go to the clinic to see the EEG results. So medical stuff is a little out of control right now. So President talked to one of the IFR's this week and found out that, by number of missionaries, we are the largest mission in all of south and central america. And that being the case, we're assuming in all the world. I'm sure we'll drop in number the next few months but for right now it's pretty intimidating to keep track of all this. President gave me a good pep talk this week though and I think we'll get by.

I am... out of things to say.

Seacrest out.

Elder Brian.

Grace--Learning Heaven

So I’m officially done with my bang up job training Elder Richards. Now I sit and watch my Hijito fly. Except I keep going back to do his job too. Generally not because he needs me to. Just because it’s refreshing to do things when I know what I’m doing. The personal Secretary gig is definitely super confusing right now. Normally it just feels like I’m waiting for disasters to strike and then frantically try to save the day. So I’m pretty stoked on the theoretical day when I stop working reactively and toss some proactivity in there. I’m not sure if proactivity is a word. It really ought to be. For right now I’m getting prepped for a Sister to get her gall bladder out while simultaneously helping an elder get an EEG in the middle of Backwardsville Peru and in the mean time dodge/diffuse the profusion of all the lesser (slightly whiny) complaints that 200 some odd missionaries can throw out.  Get your game face on folks.

Hope you guys had a good Christmas. Mine was super awesome. Something I learned this week: Remember the parable of the bicycle? Dad does ask him. Well I was listening to a talk and reading some stuff and I decided that, as good as that parable is, some people misinterpret and it tends to perpetuate a misconception about grace. Everyone always seems to want to battle us about grace. How we’re trying to earn our way to heaven. Not true. We’re not earning heaven. We’re learning heaven. We’re practicing for it. Of course we’re saved by grace, but the bigger question is if we’ve been changed by grace. The scriptures make it extremely clear that no unclean thing can dwell with God, but no unchanged thing will even want to (see Alma 36). So this is where the bicycle parable comes in. Some people seem to think that our small obedience and righteousness (the few coins saved in the parable) are needed to fill the gap that stands between us and perfection. That Christ will fill the gap after all we can do. The truth is that we don’t fill any part of that gap. When Christ invested in us, he paid in full. He didn’t pay it except for a few coins. He paid it all. It is done. Christ then turns to us and offers his own requirements. These requirements are not to appease justice. They’re to help us change into more heavenly, Christ-like beings. I heard it said somewhere that, “heaven will not be heaven to those who haven’t chosen to be heavenly.” Example: remember going to EFY and there was always that one kid in your group whose parents made him come and then by the end of day one he called up his mom and shouted, “get me out of here!” Happens all the time. Why is it so awful for him but so many other people have excellent experiences? I used to have this idea of heaven where I was sitting there nervously in a chair and Jesus was there looking at his clipboard shaking his head, informing me that I’d missed it by 5 points, then me begging him to take another look at my essay questions and so on. But I don’t think that anymore. I don’t think it will be the unrepentant sinner begging “Please, let me stay.” He’ll probably be saying, “Get me out of here!” What we are asked to do here is not to appease justice or to qualify in some mystical account for Christ to fill our gaps. Grace is not a booster engine that kicks on after “all we can do” is reached. It is a power received daily as we continue in our weakness to do “all we can do” in any given day or moment. If Christ didn’t require this practice we would never become what we need to be. This perspective is easy to see in things like learning the piano, but very difficult to see in learning heaven. When kids mess up and hit wrong notes in piano no one says they’re unworthy to keep playing. We just expect them to give a continuous effort. It´s all a part of the learning process. Grace is not the light at the end of the tunnel, it’s the light that moves us through the tunnel. It is not a finishing touch; it is The Finisher’s touch. It is not the absence of God’s high expectations; it is the presence of His power. When we depend on grace we don’t discover, as some would say, that Christ requires nothing; we discover why he requires so much. 

So there you go.

-Elder Brian