Wedding Week!

This week was probably... no, with out a doubt the most unnecessarily complicated week of my life. Or at least past 3 days. On Monday I had to go on exchanges with a Latino missionary to a place an hour away called Villa Gonzalez where the government building is for marriage. The missionary I was with, Elder Martinez, served there not too long ago, so he knew the area well. We got there at 10am thinking it was going to be this easy process of giving the paper work that was needed and then getting an appointment for Friday afternoon. Nope. Should have known that nothing is that easy in this country. We had everything we needed/was required, except the copy of the groom's ID card was wrong. His real ID card spelled his name wrong, so the copy was wrong too. So all we needed to do was get him a new one which is super easy and we could do there. Except, one problem; Ysidro, the groom, was in Santiago an hour away! So we traveled back to Santiago to find him and take him to Villa Gonzalez. After waiting for him for about an hour in the most busy street of Santiago, we headed back to Villa Gonzalez. When we got there, the only time we could do the wedding that the place wasn't booked for was Friday in the morning, or Wednesday in the afternoon. Rosario, the bride, could not do it Friday in the morning, so we had to settle for Wednesday, knowing that the next two days would be insane tying to get everything in order and planned and set up having 3 less days. But we had no other option. We then realized that the bridesmaid/girl witness could not do it that day, so we had to run to the internet center, call my companion and the missionary he was with who were in Los Reyes where our Church is, and get them to go to a members house who could be the girl witness and get a copy of her ID and send it to us through email. That took about an hour because the email kept not working. Then we finally got it and ran back to where the government building was. When we got there, we were told that we didn't even need that paperwork until the day of the wedding. So we pretty much just wasted an hour stressing over that, trying to obtain the copy of the ID. We then went back to my area, I got my companion, and we whipped out the phone book and started calling everyone we could to help us with this wedding and the reception. Tuesday night, we went to the church to talk with all the members because that is usually when they have mutual and all the members are there. The young women were awesome and made decorations and the sister missionaries got some girly things done for us. Then the big day came around. Yesterday was just a day I never want to relive. I was wishing it would be over pretty much by 11am. The wedding was in Villa Gonzalez at 3:30pm so we were outside of Rosario and Ysidro's house at 2pm waiting for our transportation. We realized there were a bit more people than we originally expected, so I called the 1st counselor in the bishopric (one of my church leaders) to ask for more transportation. He kind of laughed at me and told me to figure it out. So I figured it out and we just stuffed about 25 people in two cars with me and my companion in the trunk... Literally. Our bishop was driving the car filled with half of the people and we were in the car behind, following because supposedly he knew where to go. Well, he didn't and we ended up getting lost literally in the middle of nowhere. With 25 minutes until 3:30 and 35 minutes away, still lost, we managed to find the freeway. Well, the freeway was the wrong freeway. So we had to pay a $100 peso toll to get on the right freeway. Finally we got there and raced inside. I am going to be a little less detailed here because weddings here are pretty much just two people signing papers, kissing, and yeah. But that was also a complicated process too because we literally figured out who was going to be the girl witness 5 minutes before the wedding. And the lady who was the girl witness was a lady from my ward who took off work to do it and was super mad at me because it almost wasn't her. So she has been giving me dirty looks ever since. Like sorry I have 100 other things to worry about and my mission leader told me it was going to be someone else. Not my fault. I don't know why I got blamed for that when that was out of my hands. Anyway the wedding happened and then we packed back into the cars. Right before we left, my bishop asked my companion and I if we could take a gua gua back ourselves... Why? I have no idea. But that was annoying. we said we had to take Ysidro and a couple others back to Los Cocos to get a couple things and other people. So we got in the cars and left, thinking they were going to take us back to Los Cocos. But for some reason they thought it would be a good idea to have everyone show up to the reception 2 hours early, so they dropped us off at a curb in Santiago and told us sorry that they couldn't take us all the way back... So then we had to walk to where the gua guas were. Ysidro was with us, sweating in his suit. You could say at this point, I was very ticked off at my ward members. I had to pay with my own money for Ysidro because he didn't have any money. When we got back to Los Cocos, we ran across town looking for our investigators. We were supposed to have a member come get us in their car, but for some reason NO ONE could. There was about 20 people who wanted to go that were in Los Cocos, but ended up not going because we couldn't get a ride to the church in Los Reyes. I called everyone and their mothers. But it seemed that they were all just too busy to travel like 15 minutes to Los Cocos and at least take the flipping groom to his own wedding reception. My ward mission leader was calling everyone he could too, but he said the few people that were actually able to told him they didn't want to... At this point I was about ready to put all my ward in one room and yell until it was made clear that I can't do everything by myself. So I just did the only possible thing we could which was go in a gua gua. So again I had to pay for them. Luckily I will be reimbursed. We finally got to the church and the reception started. I was pretty upset and stressed and annoyed when we finally got there, but I decided that I just needed to be happy that we were finally there, that we had the wedding, and that we even have all of this to be worked up on in the first place. So I threw my troubles aside and put on a big happy smile. I went to the bathroom real quick to see why everyone kept asking what was wrong with my eyes. When I looked in the mirror, my eyes were bloodshot and I might have even popped a blood-vessel in my right eye. So I had to look extra smiley or else I would have looked like a druggy or like I hadn't slept and had been crying for the past 2 days straight. The reception went on, and so did the complications haha. We didn't have anything to cut the cake, nor plates, nor forks, nor cups, because the people we assigned to bring those and take care of that part decided to go to a stake activity that was that night instead. By this time I just laughed and we "figured it out" like we did all day. The party eventually ended and it was time to go. Well, transportation back to Los Cocos was still an issue. But the bishop had a truck and took half in there and the other half just went in a taxi we ordered.

When my companion and I finally got home after this extra long day that felt like weeks, we just laughed and thanked Heavenly Father in prayer for the craziness and that it all worked out in the end. I hope I did not sound like a whinny missionary complaining about the hard days in the mission because that was not at all my intention. I just like to be honest and take ya'll through the adventure I had as I re-cap my amazing, unforgettable experiences. As I sit here pondering about these past 3 days, especially yesterday, I feel bad for not being more of an optimist and not 100% thankful for everything like I should have. It is easy to look at all the things that go wrong in our lives, or the people that let us down, but it is way more important and worth it to look at/remember the good in everything. There were so many good/great/awesome parts of the past 3 days as well. We got a family married. They are now not breaking a huge commandment, the law of Chastity. We will have a baptism for them on Saturday. They will be clean of their sins and take upon them the name of Christ. We had so many other people in our ward that actually did what we asked them to do and more. The wedding was awesome and fun and everyone had a blast. I could go on and on about all the positives. Now thinking about it, I should have just done that in this email in the first place.

But anyway, this week was a mixture of emotions and I am so stoked that it isn't done yet! Baptism Saturday, it will be great!

Love you all. Sorry for the long, dramatic novel.

Elder Greer