Matt's email 10/18/2010

So this week was perhaps the hardest, most  confusing, most rewarding week on the mission. I know those are 3 contradictory statements but that pretty much sums it all up. On Tuesday I went down to Mendoza and we had a leadership meeting with Elder Aidukaitis. Everyone was getting pretty worried about it because he likes to drop a lot of cain on the missionaries, but it all went pretty well. He started out by asking us if we wanted to be a mission that stays where it is at or if we want to be a mission that is always moving forward. We chose the obvious answer and he then went on to explain a lot about the process of setting goals. He told us that if we had the necessary amount of faith each missionary will be able to baptize once a week. That was pretty humbling to hear, but I am going to put the promise to the test. He taught us a lot about how to make a plan to be able to reach a goal. Then on Wednesday I had to do an interview over in another area and on Thursday we had the zone leaders over to do interviews for us. On Friday we went down as a zone to Mendoza for the zone conference and it was based a lot about the same stuff we talked about. I have come to realize the importance of goals in my life and it has been a huge blessing. The coolest part of the week happened right after Elder Aidukaitis finished and President asked me to go have an interview with him and Elder Aidukaitis. To sum things up it was me, Elder Aidukaitis, and President Lindahl in a room having a private interview in spanish. It was incredible being in the same room as someone from the first quorum of the Seventy. He is an amazing man and taught me a lot. Then on Friday night we got back to San Juan and I had to do some more interviews for the zone leaders. We ended up sleeping on their floor because we got back super late. One of the interviews was just ridiculous. I don´t even want to write about it it was so bad. This lady was just crazy. But then on Saturday we had a couple baptisms which went really well. Sunday shows up, one of the investigators that got baptized didn´t show up until Sacrament Meeting and then we find out she drank a little alcohol after her baptism. She didn´t end up getting confirmed, although President Lindahl says she should have and things just went down. We are hoping and praying to get her confirmed on Sunday. That´s one of the incredible blessings of the Atonement is that it is infinite and available to everyone. But yeah that is pretty much the week in a nut shell. As a zone we won a competition and will each be receiving a belt with our names on them and an asado provided by president. That should be super legit. It´s been a week of miracles. Thank you all so much for the emails. It is awesome to hear from the real world. Things are going great here. I am loving it. I love you all and hope you have a great week.
Love
Elder Burr