Hello all!
This week has been packed with a bunch of stuff but has flown by. The time here just seems to not even exist. I get up in the morning and go to bed at night and the in between is just fast and jam packed with new things; disappointments, wins, annoyances, excitement, all of the above.
For our Pday (preparation day) last week we painted the house of Painho. It took so freaking long, but it was fun. Everyone was singing songs in Portuguese that I couldn't understand but it's cool. We also cleared the backyard out. Basically we changed a yard of weeds into dirt. I think I've had some experience with that in our ridiculous yard back home! The paint they use here is just powder and water and they pretty much just slap it on the walls so we didn't have to worry about an even coat. They have this dog that just loves me. We'll be sitting and talking and it puts it's head under my hands forcing me to pet it. I don't know what kind of dog it is, some kind of mut but it's behaivior reminds me of Charlie a lot. It just wants to play even though you don't.
This week I have been trying to get more excited about the work and to be fearless because when you have fear you don't have faith and when you don't have faith, you dont have the spirit. Basically I'm just bucking up. I've gotten way better at just not caring what people think. I like to think I was that way before in English, but speaking portuguese makes it completely different. I went on division with my district leader again. He stayed at our place. We made this one contact that really hit me hard. It was this one lady who attends the assembly here. The first question we asked her was, "Do you believe that you will live with your family after this life?" She said, "no." Then we started talking about the ressurrection. She said she believes that only the faithful will be ressurrected and that everyone will be men. Huh? Oh, and we won't have bodies. It hit me real hard. How can you just accept the idea that you won't live with your family again and be perfectly content? How can you believe all this and not want to search for something better? She was almost passionate about it. It just made me realize that there are people out there who are completely lost in life. It made me more excited about the work and it made me realize that if we don't have the truth,then what is there? What's the point? I'm glad I know that we can live with our families after this life if we just have faith, repent, be baptized, receive the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end. It's so simple. This is why I'm here.
My District Leader said that my Portuguese isn't normal for a new missionary and that he thinks I'll be a trainer. If this is the case, I need to study my butt off and become independent of my trainer real fast. Istill feel like he does a lot more of the work than I do. I'll get there. Faith! It's just so hard to talk to people sometimes that I don't even want to talk and talking is our profession! Work, work, work. Study, study, study. I think I'm ready for the challenge.
This week we marked Adriana and Kelly to be baptized officially. It's been a long time since we started teaching them. They basically would just pop in and out when we were teaching Mariana and Fabiana but, we decided to get serious with them and spend some real time teaching them after we baptized the other two. Kelly is like 35 and has 3 kids. She talks way faster than I can even begin to understand. She's been to church a few times and really loves it and the spirit she feels there. She's pretty solid and wants to make sure she's ready for baptism. Adriana is Kelly's niece. She's 18 years old and has also decided to be baptized so we'll have two baptisms this weekend. I've promised to make cookies again with the right sugar. We're trying to get Kelly's children baptized too. They like us a lot but aren't ready yet. We will just have to keep teaching them. There's another lady that we are trying to baptize who has been to church a billion times. Her sister is Painho's wife. She's afraid that she will separate from the church after she gets baptized. The missionaries have taught her everything but she never said yes. If we baptize her the Zone Leaders will buy us pizza for every Pday for a month. That's some insentive, plus we want to save her soul too!!!
.....Miscillaneous Stuff....
*No the picture of the house was not mine. It was the house of one of the members where we ate lunch.
*Yes, it's easy to sleep. We all have our own personal fans and I have mine blasting on my face the whole night so I'm good. I usually wake up with some random bugbites too, even though I use bugspray.
*Yes, we take the bus everywhere. I've memorized the routes already. Sometimes I want to take the bus instead of walking to appointments but my companion doesnt so we just walk. I guess it's good excersise.
Today we went to Alto da sé. It was sweet. There are a bunch of old Catholic churches there and awesome views. I'll try to send some pics. I took so many.. my companion got kind of impatient but whatever!
Awesome. Hope this email makes up for the one last week. Thought it was kinda weak.
Love you all and I always pray for each member of the family every day! Till next week!
Elder Dallin Stephen Carrol
No comments:
Post a Comment