So usually my companion and I send our emails from this one LAN house (they're all over Brasil) near our house. Last week we were near the chapel trying to find somewhere to eat because our lunch appointment fell through, and we found a little place that sells salgados and stuff. The dude who runs it is from Bahia, and he loves rock 'n roll. He has a bunch of CDs and pictures of famous rock stars that he clearly printed out himself glued to the wall. And he has two laptops that he said were really expensive, so we're sending our emails from here today. And the dude is blasting a Linkin Park DVD on his TV. I feel like I'm in Babylon.
Aaaaaaand I just heard the f word for the first time in a year. I just want some peace and quiet! It really is hard for me to concentrate right now, so sorry if I sound weird or I write choppy sentences or something.
Speaking of which, I kind of make a year this week. On Thursday, it will have been ONE YEAR since I reported to the MTC in São Paulo. One year! I seriously have no idea where all that time went. A year ago today I reported to the high council, gave my farewell-but-don't-call-it-a-farewell talk, and had my open-house-but-don't-call-it-an-open-house. A year ago. I'm sure this week will be full of reminiscing and self reflection and stuff. I know I've changed and grown a lot over the past year, but it can be kind of hard to tell how. I guess the biggest changes have been with my testimony. I knew that the Church was true when I got here, but now I know that it is, you know?
This week went by pretty slowly, but that's all right. We're doing what we can to work more with the members, and it's kind of a slow process. An idea that we had was to give each member family a Book of Mormon at our lunch appointments so that they could pray to know who they could give it to, give it to that person, and get back to us about how it went. We haven't seen any immediate results from it yet, but every family has someone in mind, and I'm pretty sure that something will come of it. Because we've been focusing so much on working with members, my comp and I kind of lost steam in making contacts this week. Teaching members' friends is so much more productive than trying to convince strangers to let you into their houses. So help the missionaries in your ward out! Invite one of your friends to church or something! And if you can think of a more effective way for us to work with members, tell me!
We did have three people at church yesterday, which was great. My companion and I did a little division with the bishop and another irmão because they both have cars, and we went to pick up some investigators and take them to church. One of them was Manoel, who we have been teaching for a while now. He's progressing nicely (it's been almost three months since he did anything contrary to the Word of Wisdom!), but we need to work hard to get him some friends in the ward. The other is a twentysomething named Jorge. We found him when he and his wife were moving into their new house. We offered to help them move their stuff in, and they accepted (no one ever accepts our help)! We taught him the first lesson, and two weeks later, he went to church! It was actually pretty cool: he stayed for all three hours, and apparently he told Elder Gillespie as he was leaving that he wanted to talk to us this week about baptism. So that's cool. We'll see what happens!
The third person we had at church was a young woman. Her name is Larissa, and she's a friend of the girl we baptized. We kind of told a member family that they should take her to church, and then we kind of told her that she was going to church with that family, and she went! We're going to teach her this week, and then we'll just throw her in that darn water!
Everything's going well out here. We are really having to be creative with our work and think of new ways to find people because we've already tried all the old ways. I want to talk more, but my time's up! I love all of you so dang much! The Church is true!
luv
Aaaaaaand I just heard the f word for the first time in a year. I just want some peace and quiet! It really is hard for me to concentrate right now, so sorry if I sound weird or I write choppy sentences or something.
Speaking of which, I kind of make a year this week. On Thursday, it will have been ONE YEAR since I reported to the MTC in São Paulo. One year! I seriously have no idea where all that time went. A year ago today I reported to the high council, gave my farewell-but-don't-call-it-a-farewell talk, and had my open-house-but-don't-call-it-an-open-house. A year ago. I'm sure this week will be full of reminiscing and self reflection and stuff. I know I've changed and grown a lot over the past year, but it can be kind of hard to tell how. I guess the biggest changes have been with my testimony. I knew that the Church was true when I got here, but now I know that it is, you know?
This week went by pretty slowly, but that's all right. We're doing what we can to work more with the members, and it's kind of a slow process. An idea that we had was to give each member family a Book of Mormon at our lunch appointments so that they could pray to know who they could give it to, give it to that person, and get back to us about how it went. We haven't seen any immediate results from it yet, but every family has someone in mind, and I'm pretty sure that something will come of it. Because we've been focusing so much on working with members, my comp and I kind of lost steam in making contacts this week. Teaching members' friends is so much more productive than trying to convince strangers to let you into their houses. So help the missionaries in your ward out! Invite one of your friends to church or something! And if you can think of a more effective way for us to work with members, tell me!
We did have three people at church yesterday, which was great. My companion and I did a little division with the bishop and another irmão because they both have cars, and we went to pick up some investigators and take them to church. One of them was Manoel, who we have been teaching for a while now. He's progressing nicely (it's been almost three months since he did anything contrary to the Word of Wisdom!), but we need to work hard to get him some friends in the ward. The other is a twentysomething named Jorge. We found him when he and his wife were moving into their new house. We offered to help them move their stuff in, and they accepted (no one ever accepts our help)! We taught him the first lesson, and two weeks later, he went to church! It was actually pretty cool: he stayed for all three hours, and apparently he told Elder Gillespie as he was leaving that he wanted to talk to us this week about baptism. So that's cool. We'll see what happens!
The third person we had at church was a young woman. Her name is Larissa, and she's a friend of the girl we baptized. We kind of told a member family that they should take her to church, and then we kind of told her that she was going to church with that family, and she went! We're going to teach her this week, and then we'll just throw her in that darn water!
Everything's going well out here. We are really having to be creative with our work and think of new ways to find people because we've already tried all the old ways. I want to talk more, but my time's up! I love all of you so dang much! The Church is true!
luv
booga
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