Christmas day was pretty chill. We cooked all day. I messed up the rolls because my companion told me to buy what he thought was yeast.. it was baking soda.. it did nothing. The stores weren't open to buy yeast on Christmas so I just made sort of scones.. nobody liked them.. not even me. Haha, oh well. The pasta salad I made was AWESOME! We had a little District Christmas dinner and it was pretty much a fail, haha. But after the dinner, the sisters and us went out and sang Christmas carols to a bunch of members and gave them cookies. It was actually a really fun Christmas this year!
The entire week has been NUTS. My companion and I barely had anytime to proselyte. On Wednesday we were asked to fill the font for a ward baptism. We went at 2 pm and had problems with it until about 4:30-ish. Then the water and light went out. (The baptism was suppposed to start at 5 pm.) The little girl and her family all got there at 5 pm and the rest of the ward DIDN'T SHOW UP?? We started cleaning because no one was there to do it. The poor girl waited an hour and a half and then everyone started showing up. We weren't happy.. super unprepared baptism and we ended up having a talk with the bishopric and those in charge.. they got the message.
We know they got the message because our baptism for Saturday was a HUGE success! We decided to have the 5 baptisms in the Zone this week all together in our church building. Friday, us and the sisters bought and made the cookies (200 cookies!!) for the baptism (my special cookies.) That took all morning. Then we had to clean the church a little, then give 3 interviews, then clean more.. super long day but successful preparing for the baptism.
Saturday was AWESOME! Everyone got there on time. President Rios came and gave a great talk. The special number we gave was great. All 5 baptisms were done on the first try. It all just turned out perfect, and super organized. Irvin is a STUD! The kid is already preparing for a mission. The YSA rep (Young Single Adults) gave him a PMG (Preach My Gospel book.) We passed by today and he's already read all the intro. He's starting the first chapter tomorrow. Also he wants an Institute manual to study his scriptures better (he's in 2 Nephi 20 and studies every morning.) Never met anyone so prepared and converted in my life. He's gonna be an apostle, just wait.
Apart from that, during the baptism Hermana Rios came up to me and goes, "Elder Rokovitz, was that you who called on the phone today and invited president to give the talk?" I go, "Yeah.. why?" She goes, "WOW! Elder, your Spanish is perfect! I don't tell everyone that, but your Spanish is really, really good!" Then President Rios over hears and goes, "Oh! Yes! Elder.. your pronunciation is amazing! You sound like a Latino already." YUP!! NEVER BEEN SO HYPED IN MY LIFE! Made me super happy to hear that!
Anyway.. it's been a pretty crazy week, sadly barely any proselyting. It's the first week in my mission that we found 0 new people and taught 0 lessons. But it's alright, we got and contacted a bunch of references for this week!
Yesterday was super good. The day was dry because NOBODY was home or would answer their door, but at night we went to Familia Florian again with the sisters and the bishop and ate our New Year's feast. Super fun night! Only thing is, that I don't eat rice, like, at all. I always tell my pensions I don't eat it and so they never give it to me.. yeah.. Mariela gave me a half plate of rice.. TWICE!! Like.. bruh! The food was good but literally ate a plate of rice. On top of that, on the first one I asked for some Ají to eat with it so I didn't eat just plain white rice... she gave me the Ají pepper, I cut it and put it on and WOW!!! I WAS DYING! Never had such a hot pepper in my LIFE! I was sweating buckets and everyone was dying laughing because I was dying of the hot pepper! Haha wow.. what a night. After that, we got on the roof to watch the fireworks then went to sleep.
Today we ate with Daisy (our new pension) and she is awesome. She is a nutritionist and chef (she studied for that).. so yeah, she's pretty good. She lived in Germany for 12 years. She has an 8 year old, Mateo, and she always speaks in German to him so he doesn't lose it. She also speaks English. She says apart from tomorrow, we won't speak Spanish in her house, it will be pure German and English. Cool right? I'll learn a little bit of German here!
Gonna have a good p-day today. Gonna play games with the Zone. Yup. I love you all and hope you all have a good year! FELIZ AñO NUEVO!!
Te amo, Elder Rokovitz
Some of the cookies we made for the baptism.
The Zone baptism day.
Elder Torres, Irvin and me on Irvin's baptism day.
Elder Torres, the bishop, bishop's son, Irvin and me.
The sister missionaries, Elder Torres, the bishop, his son, Irvin and me.
Elder Torres and Irvin coming out of the font after Irvin's baptism and me.
A butterfly I saw this week.
Celebrating Karla's birthday.
Celebrating the coming New Year.
Me and Elder Torres
Us with the bishop
2018 dinner with the bishop's family.
The squad!
Watching fireworks from our roof.
Me and my companion waiting for 2018.
Here's a few from our multi Zone Christmas conference last week.
Our Zone with our mission president and his wife.
Our Zone wearing the t-shirts sent by the mission moms back home.
The elders in our Zone with our matching ties.
