A Day In The Life

A long day in the life of a missionary. As a normal missionary you may encounter a lot of stress, disappointment, and rejection. This is normal, do not worry. It all gets better eventually, or you just stop paying attention, or they change your area. Personally, for me the stronger my connection is with God (through prayer and scripture study) and if I'm working out, I'm able to manage well. A wise European friend we met on the island told us, ‘the work we did was impressive and an honorable thing and that we must really love the work to do it. That it was visibly noted that a mission is physically hard, but it must be equally uplifting for the soul.’ And he nailed it. I wouldn't be here making circles around an island talking to a lot of the same people daily, if deep down in my heart I still didn’t love this work. I personally have loved this work and have found that the more you serve the better you feel even if they accept or reject you or even yell at you in a weird dialect, but that’s just funny.

This week we baptized Anigkabaler and his friend Edencio. It was my first time baptizing in the ocean and I found it funny to feel all the sand and seaweed beneath my toes. We also happened to run into some tourists on a three-year trip. We helped them fill up their tanks with water and they gave me career advice. I have some new options.

Burke is working on a ‘60-days till sexy' workout training. So we all bought kid sized versions of football jerseys to wear while doing workouts with him and play basketball. One night as we were playing, a bunch of drunks came out and challenged us. They were so wasted that one guy couldn't catch or throw the ball. Another would throw this arm in a bear hug around you to block. One guy actually just tanked three pointers. While the last one had just the biggest ego, but tripped over himself every few steps. I've never played a more enjoyable basketball game in my life. It was like street-ball with no rules. As you can imagine we won, just watching the game was hilarious as we watched them trying to organize themselves.

And most importantly...Congrats to my sister Lauren who was just called to serve in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. This is so cool, I have had a few companions from there. You are going to love this experience!