Many of you have figured out by now that metaphors and analogies help me wrap my little head around things that y'all were pretty sure were pretty self explanatory in the first place. Well, I have another one today: Watery Orange Juice. My companion is pretty sure this analogy is the dumbest thing to have ever been produced by my head, but I'm going to use it anyways.
So growing up, we took breakfast very seriously at the Aldrich house. My dad makes pancakes almost every Saturday morning. Often times these breakfasts included orange juice that we made from those little cans of frozen orange juice concentrate. Every once in a while, my little head would forget to add enough water and the juice would be sour, or I'd add too much and it would be watery. I like to liken this to our lessons and meetings we have as missionaries. If you don't spend enough time explaining a topic, it can seem overwhelming and not make a lot of sense. You can't properly teach the Plan of Salvation in 5 minutes and have everything make sense and be clear; the juice is sour. But if you spend too much time in a lesson or meeting, or we try to explain things that have little or no significance to the situation, the actual substance of the message you're trying to send gets diluted; the juice is watery.
So, we had Zone Conference on Tuesday. It lasted for almost 5 1/2 hours. Not kidding. All 4 District Leaders spoke for at least 45 minutes each, and one of the Zone Leaders for well over an hour. I honestly couldn't tell you most of what they talked about. Their ultimate goal was to planch us, or say something that would make us realize that we're all terrible missionaries. They put a fire hose in the pitcher of orange juice and left it there for 5 hours. The actual substance of the meeting had been almost entirely diluted. And by the time the meeting was over, we had had to cancel 4 appointments and we were 1 1/2 hour late to comida. But the best speaker was Elder Delgado, the other Zone Leader. He spoke for a solid 8 minutes. His message was powerful, to the point, invited the Spirit, and I actually learned something useful. His orange was Aldrich-breakfast-worthy.
On Wednesday, it rained. All day. Rain is my absolute favorite, and right now, it's dry season, so I had only seen rain once since the CCM. So imagine me skipping through the streets, jumping in puddles, singing and dancing because of my pure joy. Now stop imagining that because that didn't happen. But I really was super happy about the rain. The BEST part was when we got home. Usually when we get home, our bedroom is somewhere between 90 and 95 degrees. On Wednesday, it was 77. Now imagine Elder Starks and I, each on our beds, rolling around giggling like little girls, just excited out of our minds that we were in our beds, NOT drowning in our own sweat. It must have been hilarious to watch. And that thing really did happen.
Also on Wednesday night we received a call from one of the secretaries of the mission, just to "confirm" our travel plans to Cuernavaca. We had not heard of any travel plans to Cuernavaca. We knew that we would be going to Cuernavaca around half way through my training, but had never heard anything else. So we got up early on Thursday morning to catch a bus to Cuernavaca. When we got there, they gave us food (and y'all know how I feel about people that give me food) and we had a training from Presidente y Hermana Àvila and the AP's. Also a Aldrich-breakfast-worthy meeting. When we got done with the meeting, we had mutliple missed calls from our bishop, and from other members of the ward. Apperently, our comida appointment didn't get the message that we weren't going to be able to make it, so instead of calling us, she just started telling everyone she knew. So by the time we realized what was going on, the entire ward was pretty sure our bodies had been dumped in the ocean. We quickly called bishop to tell him we were fine, and our comida appointment to apologize. Anyways, I also got to see Elder Paul, my CCM companion and the other elders I came to the mission with, and I got to spent a little bit of time in air that didn't make me wet immediately on contact.
The crowning moment of the week: the Baptism of Ali, Yajaira, y Marlon. It was amazing so see this wonderful family follow the example of our Savior and be baptized. I had the opportunity to baptize Yajaira and it was an experience I will never forget. They're already so excited to be able to enter the temple and be sealed as a family next year. I'm so proud of their decision and I'm excited to watch them continue to grow and progress. Unfortunately, they're TECHNICALLY still investigators because we had a broadcast from Salt Lake yesterday, so we have to wait until next week to confirm them, but that's not a problem that can't be solved. It's just one more thing to be able to look forward to, right?
One more story before I leave. So my parents didn't hit me as a child, but had I been like most of these little kids in our ward, my parents would have absolutely beat me, and I would've totally deserved it. Yesterday after church, some of the primary kids broke into the baptismal font and turned the water on. We were about to leave when we realized that half the church had an inch of water. So we rolled up our pants and sleeves and mopped up the water and emptied the font back to a normal level with buckets, because, ya know, drains are for chumps.
Alright, that's enough for this week. Thanks for all the love and support! I love all y'all!
-Elder Aldrich
