I Like Alma

Great to here that Batman is awesome, Levi. As for me, I resisted the temptation to buy it bootlegged here (only 1 Brazilian Real!), as everything at the border on the Brazilian/Paruguayan side is dirt cheap or illegal or both. Instead, I picked up a nice pair of gloves and a beanie to sleep in. These days, it´s really freezing at night, and boiling hot during the day, so I sleep in my sweats and beanie during the night, and walk in the roads wishing that our mission let us use shorts and sandals. Such is the mission, I guess.

So Rob´s gonna be training Griffin Taylor? Is that what he was saying in his last blog? Há, that´s funny. Time flies. Man, congrats to him and good luck to them comrades. I wish we got to know about such things (transfers, etc...) so far ahead in the future.

So what a week it was. We´ve gotten new goals from the mission and now we´re trying to mark baptisms like crazy. We´re trying to move out of the phase where we have to visit with investigators for two transfers, and instead see if we can get them along faster. As always, the hardest part is getting people to come to church. With some of our investigators living about 45 minutes on foot from the chapel and Church starting at 8 am, many of our investigators are in sore need of rides. Unfortunately, the bishop this week gave the axé to our suggestion of organizing a system to have the members help out, so unfortunately we´re having to find other alternatives. We´re praying to find some way to help people get to the church...

On a better note, I had one of the better, if not best, experiences of my mission last night. We´re teaching two girls (named Marribe and Nuria. Two names I´ve never heard of in my life.) who are a reference from one of the girl ward missionaries. They´re progressing really well, and the only hold back that we have is that they travel a lot to do something (exactly what, I don´t know) most Sundays, and so are never around to come to church. But I guess that´s ending now, and Marribe can start coming to church. Nuria is her friend, and sometimes can´t be at the appointments because she works. So, most of the time we teach Marribe with one of the ward missionaries. Anyway, she accepted of invites to read and pray. The first time she was a little wary of what we were teaching, having been born Catholic and moved religions a couple of times. She´s been reading and praying, but hasn´t felt that she´s been getting a response. So the last visit, we emphasised the importance of the Book of Mórmon, and I marked the passage in Alma 32 where he talk about faith. So we got to our appointment last night, (a bit late because we had to find shelter from a Brazilian Rainstorm. It was a Monsoon in my book...) and she was way excited. She told us that she had received an answer, and that she felt like that chapter was speaking right at here. She said that it helped her understand that maybe her answer won´t come all at once, but will grow like the seed that Alma is talking about. We also marked her baptism for about two weeks in the future. (as she still needs to attend church twice) It was probably the highlight of the whole week, and me and Elder De Ângelo left pretty happy about that. It helped me realize more about the importance of morning study, as I never would have thought, (or rather, have had the opportunity to have the Spirit help me remember) that I had studied about that during this transfer.

Well, that´s it for me.

Thanks again kids.

-Me