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
