A very happy Carnival to everybody, há.
So, I got transferred. I'm on my way to a city called Adamantina (I think thatś what it is) in the state of São Paulo. It was another 10 hr. bus ride, with another 2 hrs. to go. Right now I'm in a city called Presidente Prudente for the P-day, and Iĺl get to my new area tonight. Itĺl be a change as Campo Grande is the biggest zone in the mission with about 24 or so missionaries, and Adamantina just has two (2), me and my comp, so I'll see how the change goes.
Há, so Carnival is tomorrow.
Last night as we were getting a ride to the bus station, we had to take an alternate route as the parade/party was right in the road. All the youth in our ward are at Youth Conference right now, as they do it during Carnival to get all the youth out of the city I guess. Fortunately, in our mission, its not as big so we can still work during all the craziness. I'd like to know how Jeff Johnson is doing there in Rio de Janeiro, cuz thatĺl be some craziness there...
This last week we found a couple of good prospects. One lady who manages a local hot dog restaurant is already almost halfway thru 1 Nephi. The only problem is that her husband is a Catholic guy who didnt really appreciate our visit, and doesn't want to hear more. Fortunately, the lady is still reading and went to church yesterday, so I'm hoping that'll it'll continue well there.
Last night was pretty cool. we arrived at the bus station at about 10:00pm as my bus was to leave at 10:50pm, only to find that the bus had a flat tire, so the bus ended up not getting there until about 1:30 am. So it was us and about 8 other Elders who were getting transferred. We tried to talk to a couple of people about our message, but at 12 in the morning all the people who aren't drunk are asleep, so it didn't work out all that well. One of the Zone Leaders had a guitar there, so we held an impromptu sing-a-long there at the bus station. Occasionally somebody would wander by and listen, so I got to let the Brazilians hear a bit of Weezer and Social Distortion. One guy who had had a couple of drinks already wandered by asked me if I knew any Brazilian music, so I attempted to play some songs that I've heard while Ive been here. It didn't work out to well, so I ended up just playing “La Bamba” and he seemed to like it. He was singing along at the end, though in what language I'm not sure. Good times!
Welp, thatś sáll from me.
Im sure that Ill have plenty of new stuff to talk about next week with the new area and all.
Till then -Me
Monday, February 23, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Thirty (30) Bibles
I think that we´re being tested this last week. I dunno why, but it just seemed like we faced a higher percentage of rejection compared to other weeks. I´m not discouraged, as I know that´s how it goes sometimes, but it was disappointing to see. For example, usually the references that we get from the reference site when people call using the pass-along cards are usually pretty good, as the person has to make an effort to call so it shows that they actually wanna do something. But this week we got a couple of people who just wanted the free DVD and to stick with the Bible, and another older guy who has about 30 Bibles in his house and just wanted to show his knowledge of biblical stuff. He did accept the Book of Mormon and the invitation to read it, but on the return visit we found that he was only looking for contradictions and not the truth. The 30 Bible guy was interesting. While the lesson wasn´t very productive, it did give me some more first-hand experience about why Prophets and Apostles are so important. This guy studies various versions of the Bible everyday, but I saw that with a lot of study but no guidance by the spirit or interpretation by a living prophet, his doctrinal stance on everything was all over the place. For example, he threw out his TV, magazines, newspapers, and all the pictures of his family because he believes that violates the commandment to not make any graven images. Needless to say, he wasn´t too happy with the pictures of the various scenes of the Book of Mormon in the front of the book.
R., the lady who got baptized last week, is already experiencing a little friction in the house since the baptism. She´s doing great, but unfortunately her husband is being a little bit negative. Like I said previously, he stopped participating after the Word of Wisdom lesson, and usually greets us with a smile and everything, but R. says he always makes comments after we leave about how the church is messing with his life (For example, R. makes hot chocolate or a drink called Cevada instead of coffee in the morning for everybody, and he´s a little miffed about that) and if she does something wrong, he usually blames the church for some reason or another. It´s a bit difficult, as we´re trying to be friendly and all, but he just sees her entering in the church as something of a nuisance. But, in an event that I can only attribute to divine inspiration, when R. was feeling really down last week and doubting her decision a bit, she talked to her neighbor in front of her house. It turns out that the guy´s brother is a member of the church, and he knows a bit about the church and has a really good opinion about it. He basically told her that there will always be challenges, even after baptism, and that she shouldn´t give up at the first challenge. She said that she took confidence from his words and has hope.
Welp, that´s all from me.
Till next time.
-Me
R., the lady who got baptized last week, is already experiencing a little friction in the house since the baptism. She´s doing great, but unfortunately her husband is being a little bit negative. Like I said previously, he stopped participating after the Word of Wisdom lesson, and usually greets us with a smile and everything, but R. says he always makes comments after we leave about how the church is messing with his life (For example, R. makes hot chocolate or a drink called Cevada instead of coffee in the morning for everybody, and he´s a little miffed about that) and if she does something wrong, he usually blames the church for some reason or another. It´s a bit difficult, as we´re trying to be friendly and all, but he just sees her entering in the church as something of a nuisance. But, in an event that I can only attribute to divine inspiration, when R. was feeling really down last week and doubting her decision a bit, she talked to her neighbor in front of her house. It turns out that the guy´s brother is a member of the church, and he knows a bit about the church and has a really good opinion about it. He basically told her that there will always be challenges, even after baptism, and that she shouldn´t give up at the first challenge. She said that she took confidence from his words and has hope.
Welp, that´s all from me.
Till next time.
-Me
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Little Purple Pansies
I’m happy this week, as R´s baptism went very well. She was doubting a lot whether she should actually get baptized, but in the end her asking and praying about the whole thing led her to make the decision to get baptized, for which we were very grateful. Now our project will be keeping her going strong and see if we can get her husband to have more interest. He didn’t even come to the baptism, even after she invited him, which was kinda sad, but we’ll see how things go.
Last night we decided to go do some street contacting in a part of our neighborhood that we haven’t been to before. We managed to find the heaviest concentration of churches that I’ve seen yet on my mission. There was one block that just had a school, and 7 churches on it, each one at the side of another, with another 5 or 6 nearby. And all of them where having meetings at the same time. It was a bit nuts, with the Hallelujahs from one church mixing with the rock band of another, and the various pastors yells all combining to make a big spiritual ball of sound. I felt sorry for the little “God Is Love” church as the Baptist church’s singing and band made it impossible for anyone to hear there meeting. It was pretty amazing, and I wish that I had brought my camera.
As we continued to walk, it seemed that all the churches seemed to let out at about the same time, so we tried our luck with some people that we passed by. Unfortunately, it was a big group leaving from the JW's church, so we didn’t manage to get even one person to listen. More luck was had with a group of Catholic’s who thought that the pass-along cards that we were offering where saints and readily accepted.
We’re having to revamp our investigator pool, as many of them aren’t progressing. Every week we get a bunch of people who say there reading and will definately go to church…but when we show up at there house or call on Sunday morning there either asleep or are waiting for a distant relative that they haven’t seen in a while to show up at their house. (A common excuse around here. I dunno why.) Lauren’s comment about that is right, as most people are asleep when we come knocking. Also, we need to figure out how to motivate some husbands of some families that we’re teaching. We have about 3 or 4 families where the wives really want to go to church and get baptized, but the husbands either don’t want to get married legally or aren't motivated to go to church, so unfortunately progress is very slow with them. How come the men are so much harder to get to do anything?
On a closing note, some guy from the stake high council spoke in our ward yesterday about the importance of things like Family Home Evening. He explained how he always let even the smallest kid have part of the planning, even when the ended up singing “I Am a child of God” for 4 months straight every FHE. It reminded me how we used to sing “Little Purple Pansies” every FHE. Good times!
Welp, that’s about it from me.
Thanks again guys.
-Me
Last night we decided to go do some street contacting in a part of our neighborhood that we haven’t been to before. We managed to find the heaviest concentration of churches that I’ve seen yet on my mission. There was one block that just had a school, and 7 churches on it, each one at the side of another, with another 5 or 6 nearby. And all of them where having meetings at the same time. It was a bit nuts, with the Hallelujahs from one church mixing with the rock band of another, and the various pastors yells all combining to make a big spiritual ball of sound. I felt sorry for the little “God Is Love” church as the Baptist church’s singing and band made it impossible for anyone to hear there meeting. It was pretty amazing, and I wish that I had brought my camera.
As we continued to walk, it seemed that all the churches seemed to let out at about the same time, so we tried our luck with some people that we passed by. Unfortunately, it was a big group leaving from the JW's church, so we didn’t manage to get even one person to listen. More luck was had with a group of Catholic’s who thought that the pass-along cards that we were offering where saints and readily accepted.
We’re having to revamp our investigator pool, as many of them aren’t progressing. Every week we get a bunch of people who say there reading and will definately go to church…but when we show up at there house or call on Sunday morning there either asleep or are waiting for a distant relative that they haven’t seen in a while to show up at their house. (A common excuse around here. I dunno why.) Lauren’s comment about that is right, as most people are asleep when we come knocking. Also, we need to figure out how to motivate some husbands of some families that we’re teaching. We have about 3 or 4 families where the wives really want to go to church and get baptized, but the husbands either don’t want to get married legally or aren't motivated to go to church, so unfortunately progress is very slow with them. How come the men are so much harder to get to do anything?
On a closing note, some guy from the stake high council spoke in our ward yesterday about the importance of things like Family Home Evening. He explained how he always let even the smallest kid have part of the planning, even when the ended up singing “I Am a child of God” for 4 months straight every FHE. It reminded me how we used to sing “Little Purple Pansies” every FHE. Good times!
Welp, that’s about it from me.
Thanks again guys.
-Me
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Rice can grow in the sink...
The Steelers won, eh? Huh, I´m surprised that the Cardinals even got in. There´s a couple of Elders in the zone from Arizona, so they were a little miffed with that one.
This week was a bit rough, Friday especially. After that day, I´m concerned about pastors and people from other churches who don´t want to understand the message. We taught a fairly large family that day, and the dad happened to be a pastor of some local church. Fortunately, he wasn´t the kind of pastor who wanted to do Bible bashing that would impede the message. Unfortunately, he was the kind that liked to show how much knowledge he had and would launch off into various off-topic stories in the middle of the lesson, which impeded the message all the same, and despite all our efforts, he kept on talking.
We also taught a couple of references that we got from a less-active guy. His name´s R., and we´re teaching him and his wife, (who´s not a member) and helping him to get back into church. When we taught there on Thursday, his wife had two friends over, two girls of about 15 and 20. They showed interest in the message and wanted a Book of Mormon. When we returned on Friday, they both had many questions and doubts, but the older one told us "I think that I´ll have to read and pray about it for myself before I decide", which is exactly what we wanted to hear. The younger one, however, told us that she had read and gotten an answer, although not a positive one. Apparently she read, and then asked her mom about it, for which she received the answer that she should stop reading the book. After that, she opened the Bible and found a scripture in Jeremiah that she said is her answer. I don´t remember exactly what it said, but it was something like "All of them and their prophets are adulterers, and they serve the God of Baal". She then told us that we obviously serve the God of Baal, and that she didn´t want to hear anymore, Sheesh! It was definitely the first time that somebody has told me that in my life. So thus ended our teaching experience there.
On a highly better note, Ros. decided to get baptized this week! She´s been going to church every week, but still felt that something was missing for her to be baptized. We couldn´t quite figure our what it was for a while, but after praying and studying for a bit, we felt that it was probably just the fact that she was feeling scared, as she already received an answer about the Book of Mormon. On Tuesday, I asked her if she had asked God about her baptism date. She said she hadn´t, and said she would. When we came back, she said that she had prayed and now felt ready to be baptized, so this week it´ll happen.
We were really happy and grateful for that opportunity. We wanted to help with her husband as well, but he didn´t like the Word of Wisdom discussion too much,and told us that he preferred not to participate from then on. In any case, we were grateful for the blessing of being able to teach Ros.That´s about it from this end.
President might be coming to visit this week, so we spent some extra time with some neglected house cleaning. Our kitchen sink is really messed up and doesn´t drain right, so Elder R. messed with it today. When he opened up the pipe, he found that the reason was because of bunch of rice that somebody had poured down the drain (I think it was me) had gotten stuck and had started to sprout and grow. Heh,it was the first time that I had seen rice growing in any form, much less in the kitchen sink. It was pretty cool. I had forgotten that sinks here don´t have a garbage disposal...my bad judgment.
... sáll from me. ´till next time.
-Eldah Heperi
This week was a bit rough, Friday especially. After that day, I´m concerned about pastors and people from other churches who don´t want to understand the message. We taught a fairly large family that day, and the dad happened to be a pastor of some local church. Fortunately, he wasn´t the kind of pastor who wanted to do Bible bashing that would impede the message. Unfortunately, he was the kind that liked to show how much knowledge he had and would launch off into various off-topic stories in the middle of the lesson, which impeded the message all the same, and despite all our efforts, he kept on talking.
We also taught a couple of references that we got from a less-active guy. His name´s R., and we´re teaching him and his wife, (who´s not a member) and helping him to get back into church. When we taught there on Thursday, his wife had two friends over, two girls of about 15 and 20. They showed interest in the message and wanted a Book of Mormon. When we returned on Friday, they both had many questions and doubts, but the older one told us "I think that I´ll have to read and pray about it for myself before I decide", which is exactly what we wanted to hear. The younger one, however, told us that she had read and gotten an answer, although not a positive one. Apparently she read, and then asked her mom about it, for which she received the answer that she should stop reading the book. After that, she opened the Bible and found a scripture in Jeremiah that she said is her answer. I don´t remember exactly what it said, but it was something like "All of them and their prophets are adulterers, and they serve the God of Baal". She then told us that we obviously serve the God of Baal, and that she didn´t want to hear anymore, Sheesh! It was definitely the first time that somebody has told me that in my life. So thus ended our teaching experience there.
On a highly better note, Ros. decided to get baptized this week! She´s been going to church every week, but still felt that something was missing for her to be baptized. We couldn´t quite figure our what it was for a while, but after praying and studying for a bit, we felt that it was probably just the fact that she was feeling scared, as she already received an answer about the Book of Mormon. On Tuesday, I asked her if she had asked God about her baptism date. She said she hadn´t, and said she would. When we came back, she said that she had prayed and now felt ready to be baptized, so this week it´ll happen.
We were really happy and grateful for that opportunity. We wanted to help with her husband as well, but he didn´t like the Word of Wisdom discussion too much,and told us that he preferred not to participate from then on. In any case, we were grateful for the blessing of being able to teach Ros.That´s about it from this end.
President might be coming to visit this week, so we spent some extra time with some neglected house cleaning. Our kitchen sink is really messed up and doesn´t drain right, so Elder R. messed with it today. When he opened up the pipe, he found that the reason was because of bunch of rice that somebody had poured down the drain (I think it was me) had gotten stuck and had started to sprout and grow. Heh,it was the first time that I had seen rice growing in any form, much less in the kitchen sink. It was pretty cool. I had forgotten that sinks here don´t have a garbage disposal...my bad judgment.
... sáll from me. ´till next time.
-Eldah Heperi
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
More Marriages
Hey, so first of all, nobody told me that Elder Wirthlin died! My area is the farthest away from the center of the city, and as we´re without a cellphone, we don´t get too much contact with the rest of the mission. I was at a member´s house when I opened the Liahona and saw the “In Memorial of” page. Yeesh! I feel disconnected with the rest of what´s going on in the church.
This week we had great success in finding another complete family that truly has been prepared to receive the message. On Tuesday we went to an appointment at the appointed time, only to find that the people had forgotten and weren´t home. (Pretty normal, unfortunately). Looking to the trusty “Backup Plan” in the planner, we decided to do some door knocking to teach. The first lesson we taught was pretty lousy, as the lady we taught seemed to not even be listening. She responded like she wasn´t even paying attention to the lesson, so to grab her attention I invited her to be baptized, and she said “Yeah, that´d be nice.”
But, moving on we found success in finding W., his wife Ma..., and their 9 year old son who has a name that I can´t pronounce yet without people laughing at me. They accepted our 1st visit, and when we returned the next day, they had already read parts from the Book of Mormon and had questions, which was a nice breath of fresh air. Wan. works construction and is a bit rough on the edges, but he teared up as told us that he´s been looking for a better way of life for some time now. After the 1st lesson, they told us how they've been having some fights in their marriage. (actually, like almost everybody we teach, they´re not married but we´re working on that one) I felt inspired to teach them about family and couple prayer, and the committed to starting the practice. On the return visit, M... reported that she felt that they were starting to feel more united and that they were fighting less. I was grateful for being able to teach a principle that we´ve always observed (as we´ve always had family prayer) and help others out.
I really received a boost to my testimony about prayer this week. Me and Elder R. felt inspired to teach about marriage, Temple marriage, and the Law of Chastity on the 2nd visit, which is something that I´ve never done before. We prepared a special lesson about all those principles, and they seemed to like the lesson a lot. This coming week we´ll be helping out with their marriage as well. It really was a great blessing to be able to find them.
In other news, we managed to find the keys. Turns out that I left them in a member´s car last Sunday, so I was grateful that we don´t have to jump over the wall anymore.
In today´s plan for P-day, we´ve got a soccer game with some of the young men at the chapel, and then we´re gonna watch “Kung Fu Panda”. (Disney and other animated movies we can watch on P-day.) I´m pushing to get us to watch it in English subtitled in Portuguese instead of the other way around, so we´ll see what happens. It just won´t be the same without Jack Black´s voice coming from the Panda…
‘sall from me.
Till next week”
-Me
This week we had great success in finding another complete family that truly has been prepared to receive the message. On Tuesday we went to an appointment at the appointed time, only to find that the people had forgotten and weren´t home. (Pretty normal, unfortunately). Looking to the trusty “Backup Plan” in the planner, we decided to do some door knocking to teach. The first lesson we taught was pretty lousy, as the lady we taught seemed to not even be listening. She responded like she wasn´t even paying attention to the lesson, so to grab her attention I invited her to be baptized, and she said “Yeah, that´d be nice.”
But, moving on we found success in finding W., his wife Ma..., and their 9 year old son who has a name that I can´t pronounce yet without people laughing at me. They accepted our 1st visit, and when we returned the next day, they had already read parts from the Book of Mormon and had questions, which was a nice breath of fresh air. Wan. works construction and is a bit rough on the edges, but he teared up as told us that he´s been looking for a better way of life for some time now. After the 1st lesson, they told us how they've been having some fights in their marriage. (actually, like almost everybody we teach, they´re not married but we´re working on that one) I felt inspired to teach them about family and couple prayer, and the committed to starting the practice. On the return visit, M... reported that she felt that they were starting to feel more united and that they were fighting less. I was grateful for being able to teach a principle that we´ve always observed (as we´ve always had family prayer) and help others out.
I really received a boost to my testimony about prayer this week. Me and Elder R. felt inspired to teach about marriage, Temple marriage, and the Law of Chastity on the 2nd visit, which is something that I´ve never done before. We prepared a special lesson about all those principles, and they seemed to like the lesson a lot. This coming week we´ll be helping out with their marriage as well. It really was a great blessing to be able to find them.
In other news, we managed to find the keys. Turns out that I left them in a member´s car last Sunday, so I was grateful that we don´t have to jump over the wall anymore.
In today´s plan for P-day, we´ve got a soccer game with some of the young men at the chapel, and then we´re gonna watch “Kung Fu Panda”. (Disney and other animated movies we can watch on P-day.) I´m pushing to get us to watch it in English subtitled in Portuguese instead of the other way around, so we´ll see what happens. It just won´t be the same without Jack Black´s voice coming from the Panda…
‘sall from me.
Till next week”
-Me
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Jumping the Fence
Thus ends another week. Levi tells me that the Magleby´s dog, Puppy, is dead, which does put a damper on the day. On a happier note, that´s cool to hear that Ilse and Jessica are gonna serve missions. How many is that out from the ward now, 6? 7?
Today I´m praying that we find our house key, as I managed to lose it yesterday. We can still get in the house, so it´s not like we´re without a house, but it involves a complicated process of using the neighbor´s ladder to jump over our wall and small fence, and then going thru the backdoor, so finding our keys would be a very good thing right now.
On a funny language note, I found a new phrase to be careful with. I learned that “jumping the fence” in Portuguese also means cheating on your spouse, as the sister who is our neighbor informed me when I told her why we needed a ladder. The language continues to be something new and interesting everyday…ha ha
Well, we managed to get Ros. and her husband married, but Ros. got cold feet during the interview and wants to wait a bit before her baptism. Our project for the next few weeks will be seeing if we can follow the Spirit and resolve her doubts. She says that she doesn´t doubt that the message is true and already received a response, but that there´s just something that she´s lacking to be baptized right now. One of our other investigators, Sus., with a baptism date is also in the same boat.
On Saturday we checked our internet references and realized that there were a few from December that hadn´t been contacted yet, so we journeyed to the neighborhood that sits at the very edge of our area, Los Angeles. A lady that had called from one of the pass-along cards was very receptive to the message, and was one of those people that really makes me love to teach and be a missionary. Her name´s Luciana, and she´s been in search of a church for some time now. She´s always visiting a bunch of churches, (and with at least two churches for every block, Brazil has a lot to offer) but never has felt satisfied, and has always prayed and asked God to help her. She shared a cool experience with us. She said that the Saturday morning before we found her house, she decided to take a nap prayed and asked again for help to find a church again, and dreamt that two people would come to her house with the answer. She thought about the dream all day, and when we came knocking, she was really happy to let us teach. I was happy that we found her, and also happy that Elder R. was inspired to have us go there to contact her, as that neighborhood is not one that we usually work in.
Today for P-day we´ve got a Zone soccer/basketball game planned. I say soccer/basketball because technically we´re not supposed to play soccer as President decided not to allow it, due to excessive fights. Every soccer game that I´ve seen played on the mission usually almost always ends up in a fight between some of the Elders as Brazilians take their soccer pretty seriously; but somebody always ends up bringing a soccer ball to the basketball game anyway and it usually ends up turning into a good ól time on the field. I don´t think I make too bad of a goalie myself…heh
I believe that´s it from me.
Thanks for everything as always, and till next time.
-Me
Today I´m praying that we find our house key, as I managed to lose it yesterday. We can still get in the house, so it´s not like we´re without a house, but it involves a complicated process of using the neighbor´s ladder to jump over our wall and small fence, and then going thru the backdoor, so finding our keys would be a very good thing right now.
On a funny language note, I found a new phrase to be careful with. I learned that “jumping the fence” in Portuguese also means cheating on your spouse, as the sister who is our neighbor informed me when I told her why we needed a ladder. The language continues to be something new and interesting everyday…ha ha
Well, we managed to get Ros. and her husband married, but Ros. got cold feet during the interview and wants to wait a bit before her baptism. Our project for the next few weeks will be seeing if we can follow the Spirit and resolve her doubts. She says that she doesn´t doubt that the message is true and already received a response, but that there´s just something that she´s lacking to be baptized right now. One of our other investigators, Sus., with a baptism date is also in the same boat.
On Saturday we checked our internet references and realized that there were a few from December that hadn´t been contacted yet, so we journeyed to the neighborhood that sits at the very edge of our area, Los Angeles. A lady that had called from one of the pass-along cards was very receptive to the message, and was one of those people that really makes me love to teach and be a missionary. Her name´s Luciana, and she´s been in search of a church for some time now. She´s always visiting a bunch of churches, (and with at least two churches for every block, Brazil has a lot to offer) but never has felt satisfied, and has always prayed and asked God to help her. She shared a cool experience with us. She said that the Saturday morning before we found her house, she decided to take a nap prayed and asked again for help to find a church again, and dreamt that two people would come to her house with the answer. She thought about the dream all day, and when we came knocking, she was really happy to let us teach. I was happy that we found her, and also happy that Elder R. was inspired to have us go there to contact her, as that neighborhood is not one that we usually work in.
Today for P-day we´ve got a Zone soccer/basketball game planned. I say soccer/basketball because technically we´re not supposed to play soccer as President decided not to allow it, due to excessive fights. Every soccer game that I´ve seen played on the mission usually almost always ends up in a fight between some of the Elders as Brazilians take their soccer pretty seriously; but somebody always ends up bringing a soccer ball to the basketball game anyway and it usually ends up turning into a good ól time on the field. I don´t think I make too bad of a goalie myself…heh
I believe that´s it from me.
Thanks for everything as always, and till next time.
-Me
Weddings and Toothbrushes
So the transfer came and went, and me and Elder R. are still here. The only move we had in my district was that Elder C. left, and now an Elder named Elder Harrison is here. He’s from Orem, and a graduate from Mtn. View, so we’re comparing people to see if we know people in common. He just finished being comps with Elder Monterosa as well.
It rained a lot here as usual, and whenever we have a day of hard rain, usually all or most of our appointments fall. I dunno what it is, but people just don’t wanna open there doors during these mini-monsoons that we get around here.
We are having some good success though. New Year’s eve we were knocking some doors before heading of to dinner at a member’s house, and we found a Catholic family that was willing to listen to the message. We returned New Year’s Day, and managed to teach a lesson to about 2/3 of the family. (The other third had partied a bit too hard that night and didn’t manage to get up for an appointment at 3:30 in the afternoon.) They seemed to understand well, but on the return visit we found that the Dad didn’t really want to hear more. But fortunately one of the daughters, named Susana, (about 20 or 21 I’d guess) had read the parts that we had marked in the Book of Mormon and felt that it was true, and has been going to church for the last two weeks. She has a baptism date marked for later this month, but still is unsure. I was thinking that maybe she didn’t feel like she got a response, but when we taught her yesterday, she said “No, I know that it’s true. I’ve asked three times for a response and felt that it’s true each time.” It was pretty cool to hear her say how she felt about the Book of Mormon. Her concern, though, is how to tell her Dad that she’s going to be baptized in the church, as he’s pretty hard-core Catholic and she dozen’t think he’ll be happy with that. We’re helping her along and helping here with the decision. We’ve brought over a few members to help us teach as well, including a girl in the ward who was in more or less the same situation, so we’ll pray and work to see how it goes. If you guys could remember her and her family in your prayers that’d be great.
We’re setting up two weddings this week as well. Three of our investigators (a guy named Fabio and his wife Marcia, and a woman named Rosanna) have to get married before their baptisms. Apparently there’s some bus that comes around every week or so and does all the wedding stuff right there on the bus for you, you just need to show up with who you’re marrying and some form of identification. Who needs Las Vegas and a little white chapel when you’ve got a wedding bus?
So Tuesday we’ll be helping those people tie the knot. (Or, as I found as they say in Portuguese, they’re going to “unite the toothbrushes” or something like that. I think it refers to the fact that your toothbrush sits alone on the bathroom sink until you get married, then there are two.)
My drunk-guy experience of the week (I pretty much always have one, I just usually forget to share it) happened close to our house. I was walking with my other shoes in hand to the shoe-repair place when the guy stopped me. I’ve gotten better at telling when someone’s had a few too many, but this guy was speaking coherently so I didn’t pick up on it before a conversation started. He must have talked with the missionaries before, as he assumed me and my comp were both American. Yelling quite loudly, he told me how he hated the US, but liked the Mormons, as the idea of more than one wife appealed to him. Elder R., trying to correct him, instead got a drunken-finger pointed at him with the comment “Listen American, you’re talking with a real Brazilian here. Don’t you try to tell me what I should think.” I started laughing at that point as Elder R. tried to figure out if it was worth his time to clarify his nationality. We left while the guy continued to yell at passersby. Good times!
Welp, not much else from me.
Thanks for the support and prayers from home, and until next week.
- Luuuuuuuuke
It rained a lot here as usual, and whenever we have a day of hard rain, usually all or most of our appointments fall. I dunno what it is, but people just don’t wanna open there doors during these mini-monsoons that we get around here.
We are having some good success though. New Year’s eve we were knocking some doors before heading of to dinner at a member’s house, and we found a Catholic family that was willing to listen to the message. We returned New Year’s Day, and managed to teach a lesson to about 2/3 of the family. (The other third had partied a bit too hard that night and didn’t manage to get up for an appointment at 3:30 in the afternoon.) They seemed to understand well, but on the return visit we found that the Dad didn’t really want to hear more. But fortunately one of the daughters, named Susana, (about 20 or 21 I’d guess) had read the parts that we had marked in the Book of Mormon and felt that it was true, and has been going to church for the last two weeks. She has a baptism date marked for later this month, but still is unsure. I was thinking that maybe she didn’t feel like she got a response, but when we taught her yesterday, she said “No, I know that it’s true. I’ve asked three times for a response and felt that it’s true each time.” It was pretty cool to hear her say how she felt about the Book of Mormon. Her concern, though, is how to tell her Dad that she’s going to be baptized in the church, as he’s pretty hard-core Catholic and she dozen’t think he’ll be happy with that. We’re helping her along and helping here with the decision. We’ve brought over a few members to help us teach as well, including a girl in the ward who was in more or less the same situation, so we’ll pray and work to see how it goes. If you guys could remember her and her family in your prayers that’d be great.
We’re setting up two weddings this week as well. Three of our investigators (a guy named Fabio and his wife Marcia, and a woman named Rosanna) have to get married before their baptisms. Apparently there’s some bus that comes around every week or so and does all the wedding stuff right there on the bus for you, you just need to show up with who you’re marrying and some form of identification. Who needs Las Vegas and a little white chapel when you’ve got a wedding bus?
So Tuesday we’ll be helping those people tie the knot. (Or, as I found as they say in Portuguese, they’re going to “unite the toothbrushes” or something like that. I think it refers to the fact that your toothbrush sits alone on the bathroom sink until you get married, then there are two.)
My drunk-guy experience of the week (I pretty much always have one, I just usually forget to share it) happened close to our house. I was walking with my other shoes in hand to the shoe-repair place when the guy stopped me. I’ve gotten better at telling when someone’s had a few too many, but this guy was speaking coherently so I didn’t pick up on it before a conversation started. He must have talked with the missionaries before, as he assumed me and my comp were both American. Yelling quite loudly, he told me how he hated the US, but liked the Mormons, as the idea of more than one wife appealed to him. Elder R., trying to correct him, instead got a drunken-finger pointed at him with the comment “Listen American, you’re talking with a real Brazilian here. Don’t you try to tell me what I should think.” I started laughing at that point as Elder R. tried to figure out if it was worth his time to clarify his nationality. We left while the guy continued to yell at passersby. Good times!
Welp, not much else from me.
Thanks for the support and prayers from home, and until next week.
- Luuuuuuuuke
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