Christmas Conference is coming!

Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh I'm drained. Sorry for not responding to this sooner. I spend the last 3 days organizing the biggest event of the mission: Christmas Conference!

Alright. Gimme a few minutes to organize my thoughts here. There's a lot that happened in this last week, and I'll admit to being a little overwhelmed still by the boatload of things I do every day.

First thing I learned about the office were the baptismal forms. They're a really dull process, but worth it - because it makes people officially part of the Church. Without my putting these people into the system, they literally can't receive a calling...so it's sort of important, huh? I can now enter a baptismal form into the system in less than two minutes on average. I doubt I'm the first, but I thought about making a little program that will measure how many forms I can do per hour - I think right now I can do it in less than two. But yeah! I dunno if I can make it a key indicator, but it might be something I make a goal for. Just for fun. :P

I gave trainings in front of large groups of missionaries already. It's my responsibility to think of things that I can say to the entire mission to make everybody's life easier in the areas I work with - it's kind of daunting, sometimes, to realize that with the vast majority of the things I have here are solely my responsibility. If I don't remember to do something here, there's nobody here to remind me (except for the old secretary, who's still tutoring me through many things - E. Langlois is a pretty patient guy. :). Looks like I get to put the organizational habits I've learned here to the test! Thankfully, a few of the tricks I've used from the years I've already got with computers are coming in handy, and my planner, when I remember to use it effectively. Guess there's at least one reason I'm here, huh?

While there's many new things to handle, I'm still making goals to improve the skills I've already developed here on the mission. Now that I hardly ever worry about vocabulary, I'm particularly striving to make my accent better. Right now I'm focusing on developing my ability to mimic the Northeastern Brazilian accent that's rampant here, something I've resisted until this point. I feel better for doing it, and I realize it's kind of the toolbox concept there. I can consciously choose in English the accent I use - why can't it be the same after some development with Portuguese?

It's really cool being bilingual, though. I've run into a bunch of situations already where I had to switch very abruptly between just English and then just Portguese. I have to handle calls from paranoid/worried moms, and then talk to other Brazilians in professional situations, then I talk to missionaries with a mountain of weird things they get themselves into. Some prefer to explain in English. Others spend ten minutes explaining something's broken in their house, because they really want the problem fixed. Thankfully the Lord's help has helped me to survive the critical situations, and learn from the various mistakes I make as the novinho secretário.

Something else that's new is that I've gotten three letters from people in the areas I've served in now. I just feel...so happy because of what I read. Between inside jokes and remembering the good times, I was surprised how much these people mentioned the impact I had on their wards. One lad told me that my example helped him to change his point of view of what a good missionary was - he felt oriented by the things he saw me do, and the things we talked about while we did divisions. The interesting part is that I had no idea I was being the leader there - but in retrospect, the first observation is "Well, duh!". Missionaries, even when they don't have mission leadership designations, are still leaders to everyone around them! I wonder how many missionaries actually realize this. I think it's a valuable insight.

Everything I've been doing this last week was for the big conference we had today - so right now I'm just thinking about the very powerful spiritual wisdom I came across today. Prez. talked a lot about being married, and about married life - he didn't focus on getting married, but he talked about a few points he learned in his marriage that he thinks we ought to learn BEFORE getting to that point. Because I don't have all the time in the world, I'll just mention one point that made me think: the happiness that comes from leading one's own family successfully, not just depending on yourself but also on God. Being a leader is a concept I've had to get to know a little better this last week...so I felt it was particularly relevant. Gotta take the iniciative, be proactive, and do your best - and then the blessing you'll need will come when you need them. A friend of mine sent me a relevant quote this week that I'll paste here:

"You are doing the best you can, and that best results in good to yourself and to others. Do not nag yourself with a sense of failure. Get on your knees and ask for the blessings of the Lord; then stand on your feet and do what you are asked to do."

Anyway. I'm trying to make a small novel again - I think I'll end here with my USUAL PLEA FOR PEOPLE TO WRITE ME.

...yeah. That's about it. Until next week, y'all!

-Erich