Day at the Farm

Sorry the reply is a little late. It got a little busy, yesterday, so we had to do internet today. Anyway, yesterday, we went to somebody's farm to play soccer. It was pretty good, not much to report from there, other than that it reminded me of the farm back in New Zealand.

So this week was more eventful. Last week Elder RJ had to go to Londrina to renew his Visa, so I got to hang with the other Elders at the other house.We played Risk all P-day, and made a rule that every other game would have to all be spoken in English or Portuguese. It was funny to hear one of the Brazilians say "I will kill your people," in English to indicate that he was attacking.

Afterwards, we all went out in a big group to do contacts and stuff. There were about 7 Elders because Elder RJ wasn´t there, so we split off into smaller groups to talk to people. I was working with two Brazilian Elders when we met up with everyone else. I was still needing to talk to one more person to finish the night, so I walked just a little bit ahead of the group. I spotted an older lady who probably is about half my height walking alone, and decided that she looked good to talk to. We were headed back to the house, so all the contacts were pretty quick. Mine went kinda like this:

me-"Good evening Senhora, how are you?"

her-"Good" (At this point I talk for a second about the message and offer her a pass along card)

me-"Our Church is giving this DVD about Jesus Cristo, and all..." (At this point she looked at my name tag and realized which church I was from, and says something that I couldn´t quite hear.

me-"Sorry?" (At this point she snatches the pass along card from my had and says quite loudly while hitting me a couple of times in the chest.)

her- "I´M ALREADY PART OF THAT CHURCH RIGHT THERE!" (She says pointing at a Church that´s by us, (and it´s HUGE. It literally takes up the whole city block. It´s nowhere near as big as the conference center, but it´s big. You could easily drive a couple of trucks thru the front door.)

Then she grabs the pass along card and takes off. By this time the rest of the Elders have caught up to me and have been watching. They all saw what happened and everybody bursts out laughing, me too. It was probably the weirdest contact I´ve done yet, being assaulted by an old lady half my size. At least she took the card though!

This week we were gonna invite Pat... to get baptized, but she had a lot of concerns about the sacrament and other things. We did a split with a couple of the young men in our ward, and I had to be the one directing stuff for the first time, as the guy I was with is just a Priest. We taught the Plan of Salvation to Pat..., and she had many questions about everything. She got particularly hung up on the Fall of Adam part. Coming from a different Christian background, she was used to thinking that the Fall was a bad thing, and she was kinda having a hard time accepting the way we see it as necessary. But she said she´d pray and fast about it, and we´re going by there later today to teach her. Hopefully she´s gotten over her concerns.

Hey, that´s funny that you mentioned the mix up with the FLDS Church, because we have been getting a lot of that lately. Not being able to watch TV, we haven´t really heard about it, directly, but lately some people we talk to ask us why we´re doing that stuff that they´ve seen on TV. We´ve had to explain the difference, as the news programs here label them as LDS as well.

Well, that´s it for now. Hope everybody´s week is going well.

Excelcior!

-Elder =w= Heperi

p.s. Thanks for sharing that part about Elder Ballard. I was thinking a little bit about that too... Elder Ballard is one of my favorites, and I love his book Our Search for Happiness, in the mission library.

So Flogging Molly´s got a new album, huh, Levi? I´d love to hear it, ha.

Sorry Lauren, I don´t know what August Rush is. Is it that movie with Robin Williams in it? I saw the previews for that before I left. Also, one of the members kids was watching Alvin and the Chipmunks (It´s called "Alvin and the Squirrels" in Portuguese, because no one knows what a chipmunk is, here.) at lunch one day, and it looked pretty funny. Did you get to see it?

That´s okay that you haven´t won a game yet, Liam. My soccer team that I chose to like here in Brazil (The Corinthians), were so bad that they got demoted to the 2nd Division, so as long as you don´t play THAT badly you can feel good.

Thanks again guys, and look for that package in the mail. It´s bright orange so you can´t miss is. Aaaaannnd...in less than a month I´ll get to chat with you guys. So come prepared with any questions, and I´ll teach you to insult each other in Portuguese!

Bye!

-Me

p.p.s.-I heard about that Missionary who got killed. That is sad. But I read a quote by Pres. Joseph Fielding Smith that said that no righteous man is ever taken before his time, so that´s good.