Division Week

Dear Friends and Family,

This was a pretty fantastic week! Starting out with general conference was a great start, and things were made better by the fact that Elder Crofts and I could give our area some much needed TLC and attention. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in 3 consecutive divisions we did our best to put ourselves back in touch with all the people that we've been working with and had a good time doing it.

General Conference.

I loved listening to conference this year. On Saturday I listened to the morning session in the office with the office crew, and then for the second session and priesthood session, President actually invited us to his house where we watched, ate hamburgers, and played with their dog, Holly.


On Sunday, Elder Crofts and I went back to Mariano to see if any of our investigators showed up to watch conference. Sadly, none of them did, but there was a room set up where we could watch the remaining sessions in English, which is always awesome. Even now that I understand Spanish well, listening to conference through translators still doesn't cut it for me!

There were a ton of talks I loved, and things I learned and want to apply, but more than anything else, what I took from conference was that I want to have a stronger, more personal relationship with our Savior, Jesus Christ. I felt like every single speaker talked about the importance of knowing Him, following Him, and how we could better do it. So though I learned lots, that's the one thing I really want to take with me from conference. In these lasts 6-ish months of my mission, I'm going to do everything it takes to really get to know and understand better who the Savior is and what He's done for me.

After General Conference, like I said, Elder Crofts and I actually got to go back to our area to work! On Tuesday I spent the day working with Elder Silva (my Peruvian ex-comp). We had a great day together talking about our missions, our favorite areas, the things we've done in our missions, what we've learned, and we found some pretty cool people too. My favorite part of that division though was that at night when we were wrapping up, his comp, Elder Osterloh (who was a sushi chef before the mission) cooked us a delicious meal of steak with gourmet mashed potatoes. Super delicious!

On Wednesday, I got back together with Elder Barreto, my old Brazilian friend from the good old days in Concepcion. We, too, had a great day together, though it was raining pretty strong all day. Due to the rain, people were a lot less receptive than usual, but we had some great lessons together all the same.

Elder Barreto

Elders Fairbanks & Barreto

Elder Fairbanks' (wet) feet

 Yesterday we had a kind of special situation in my area... Elder Crofts needed to go on a trip with Elder Singer to get things done to prepare things for the big trip we're doing this week. So I got to stay behind in my area to work in a trio with Elder Pace and Elder Gundry.

We saw some pretty cool things yesterday and had some great lessons. One of my favorite experiences from the day, though, was hunting down our investigators, E & N. (I think I mentioned them a few weeks ago in my email. They're the couple that we taught on the river shore.). Recently, they moved and we haven't been able to find them. We talked to their friends (who said they were living with E's mom -- they weren't); we went to the river where they worked and talked with their co-workers; we went to their sister-in-law's house and asked there; and, finally, we went to a little family owned shop where a lady gave us super terrible directions. Translating from Spanish to English, she said: "Go up this street and turn straight. There will be a little dirt trail off to the side and you need to go onto that and walk three little blocks (because they aren't big blocks) and then ask there and you'll find them!" She Literally, she said, "Hay que doblar derecho." Which, as far as I understand, means, "Turn straight." So I asked three times to clarify: "Are we supposed to turn, or go straight?" Each time the answer was, "No. Hay que doblar derecho." So, frustrated with her directions, we just headed out. At that point, I had given up finding the house until another day, but, walking up the main road a bit, we saw a dirt road trailing off to the left. We had nothing better to do, so we followed it, walked quite a ways, and when we got to an intersection, Elder Gundry said, "I think we should stop here and ask for E." I had given up all hope at that point to find the house, because we had obviously completely gone off the confusing directions we were given. But we asked around and it just so turned out that E's house was just one block away. We found it! Maybe in the email it sounds like a kind of weird story. But to me, it was definitely a miracle.

I had a ton of other great experiences and lessons this week as well, but due to last minute trip preparations, my time's going to be cut a little short today... Just know that I love you guys tons and that I'm doing fantastic!

Love,

Elder Fairbanks