Sunday, September 28, 2014

The fun and stress of office life

Hola Familia!

It’s been another great week down here in Argentina


First off, Rodrigo got baptized last Sunday! It was a beautiful ceremony, and it all went according to plan. Afterwards, another recent convert who attended it said that her testimony grew even more just by the spirit that was at the baptism. We talked with Rodrigo’s parents and his Mom is curious about what we believe (just like we wanted), so she will be coming to Rodrigo´s confirmation tomorrow (Also what we wanted!). She noted a change in him, and that sometimes she finds him reading the Book of Mormon outside of the house. It’s a great feeling when you see people change, especially 14 year olds. We are really happy with his progress. So we are thankful to be apart of that experience and help him come to Christ.     We are looking forward to tomorrow when he gets confirmed! The ward family that is fellowshipping him has already made plans to take Rodrigo to the temple soon. How cool is that? This is when I feel the best about the mission and what I am doing!

As far as the office goes, it’s been a super stressful week. We ran out of Restoration Pamphlets and Book of Mormons which are the most important tools in the mission so we got to deal with angry missionaries. Part of it is my fault for not ordering them early enough from the distribution center, but then again, the distribution center is taking longer than it used to for the pamphlets. Our job is to maintain and distribute supplies to all the other missionaries. Each transfer, the missionaries send us a form that shows what they want. Then we put it into a little baggy and send it with President to his zone conferences or interviews. With over 245 missionaries, we always make mistakes on the order. It’s just a big dilemma. We are also in charge of cell phones, which is a big deal because every week somebody gets one robbed. There has only been one point in my office time when everyone had a working phone. We are also in charge of Datos, all of the lesson numbers and baptisms that happen come to us and we organize it and give it to President. We also put Baptismal Records into the system and send them to area offices. There are just a lot of projects and not so much time to do it, mixed with me just being tired. It is exhausting work and sometimes I struggle because I see the mistakes that I make. At the end of each day I look back and I’m very happy with what we’ve done. It is all good things.

We also do other projects that the president wants to give us.  This week President sent us a request for a report that was super complicated and one that I have never done before. So after a lot of headache, and manipulating the system, we were able to give President the Report he wanted!  Let’s just say we were happy when we woke up this morning to P-day. Luckily, President Thurgood is probably the most patient person I have ever met, and he is super nice. I enjoy serving him because he is enjoyable to serve.

Through all of that stress I learned a valuable lesson. While I didn’t know what to do to produce the report or get all that we needed to get accomplished done, my Heavenly Father did. The whole time we were trying to figure out what to do, a little thought would come into my head that would tell me exactly what needed to be done. The Lord guided me and my companion so that we could fulfill President’s expectations. God is always caring for us; all we have to do is to listen and to trust Him. He will never lead us astray!

So that’s just a little bit of what I do! It’s fun and keeps me busy, but we still find time to go out and preach at night, or at least we make time to do it! It’s a nice area and lots of work to be done. A lot of people think that because it is a richer area that nobody would listen, but there are always ears ready to hear!
 
Chapel at sunset

Anyway, Life is all good here. We’re halfway through the transfer already and starting with the month of October. I don’t even know what happened to September, I felt like it just barely got started. I’m approaching my 1 year mark in Argentina! And General Conference is already coming up! How fun is that? Plus I turn 21 this month, which is funny because I still feel like I’m 19, but I guess I don’t really get to choose my age. 

Sounds like all you had a great week! I mean, any week that Mountain Vista beats Thunder Ridge in Football is a good week right? That’s also cool to see Allie run so well. Maybe you should just tell her to win the state meet and she will! It wouldn’t surprise me if she did!

Thank you for all of your prayers and support! I love you all and hope that you have a great week!

Chau!

Elder Chipman


 Ps: Thanks for the new running shoes :)

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