Waz up!? - May 21st

Dear family,
Wow I just don’t know what to say right now. It sounds things are going on as normal as usual, a little of the bad and a little of the good. Sometimes I just feel like being at home and dropping what I am trying to do here. No one really wants to listen anyways it seems a lot of the time. So why am I here? Such a simple question to answer and the answer can take shape in various forms. Yet with all the heartaches of the mission the answer can become clouded and obscure. I feel I have let my heart soar so high so many times only to be knocked down to crumble to pieces on the floor. It has perhaps happened so many times that I have lost feeling. Yet I still get my hopes up for the next glimpse of light. One more time for one more person. We teach a lot of people all the time who are really great. Why don’t they want what we have to offer? What am I doing wrong? What more can I do? As I ask this question, the mission is always demanding that we give our all which always requires more and more. Of course if we aren’t progressing we are going to fall backwards. That is very true.
So I have been feeling like I need to do something to get some energy back for the work. It is a struggle at times because it isn’t like I am not working. Indeed I am working more efficiently than I have at any other point in my mission. I just don’t know if my heart is in it in quite the way it was when I was a nuevito just starting the mission. It is like I had so much faith and hope that everyone was going to comply with the commitments we left and progress in the gospel. Now it is like I have to break a mindset that the people are not going to keep their commitments. There are still always the people that you really think and hope they will keep their commitments, but there are others as well that you sometimes think, “I doubt they are really going to do it.” That is what I need to break. I also need to have more faith that the Lord is preparing people right now for us to find and baptize. I know he is, but wow it is hard to find them!
Alright, so enough of all that. Tomorrow we have zone conference and I have to direct the meeting here in Misiones. I have never done that before so it should be a good experience (although I wish they would let me just play the piano or something). We will be giving a training meeting to our zone on teaching so that investigators understand the principles and keep commitments and keeping daily contact with investigators and members to help them keep commitments. It is what we need in our area I think, but easier said than done.
We had the greatest Sunday of my mission I think this last Sunday. There were almost 90 people in church and 15 were investigators and a few more were friends of members. It was incredible! 9 investigators were of the other Elders in Ruta II, but we had 6 here from Ruta I including the Candido family (Omar, Grasiela, and children). Grasiela loved church it seems and Omar did as well though he didn’t understand how to read the hymns. We explained that to him though and he seems happier about the whole thing. They are already married and looking for a church basically, so we have a lot of hope for them. I don’t think I have ever had a church meeting so great before. Every seat was filled and the classes and talks were just perfect and taught really well. The spirit was strong. I hope this continues! Maybe we are on a verge of a major breakthrough with this branch. The breakthrough that I have been working so hard to see! I know the Lord has great plans for this area if everyone can just pull together a bit more. It is after great struggles that great things happen.
Anyways I am doing well. I hope that I didn’t upset anyone or anything like that, but I felt like I needed to put some thoughts on paper…or computer. I am still going to keep fighting onward and upward. I know the Lord will sustain me until the end. I love the mission and I know what I am doing will have fruits later on, even if I don’t have the opportunity to see them myself in this life.
Love you all,
Elder Aaron McDonald