Work is Fun!

For those of you who are following Dallin's letters, I apologize for getting behind in posting.  Dallin's sister, Ashton got married a week ago and it has been very crazy in our house.  Things have finally settled down over here and I should be able to get Dallin's blog caught up soon.

 

April 22, 2013

 

Opa.

 

This week was good, I think... Yeah, it was good.  Seriously, every day kind of feels the same and the weeks just fly by like you don't know what happened.  Usually I write things down so I can remember what happened during the week. This past pday we wrestled again. Less people came this time so it wasn't as fun but, it was still good. It was just me Elder Moore and Vitor, the small guy that beat me with an arm bar last time. We all took turns fighting each other and we all lost to one another at least one time.  I beat Vitor twice this time which made me feel good. I redeemed myself by getting him in a leg lock the first time and then I choked him out the second time.  It was fun but Elder Moore and I were super sore the next day so we decided that we aren't going to wrestle on pday again, haha.

 

The first half of the week was full of rejection and people just saying no after we had been teaching them for a couple weeks.  That was tough but there are always more people to teach. We ran out of things to do one of the days so we just started knocking doors (by clapping in the front yard).  We found these two ladies that had been baptized 20 years ago, a Mother and daughter.  One had converted to some spirit church and the mom had just stopped going to church.  It was kinda weird.  Elder Moore was talking to the daughter while I was talking to the mom, who was like 70 years old. The daughter, 30 years, didn't want to bend on her new religion, but the mom... well I kind of made her cry. I started reminding her of all the feelings she had felt when she was an active, faithful member. I guess it was just too much for her to handle. Unfortunately, neither of them went to church on Sunday but I feel like we planted a new seed. They said to come back whenever. They miss the presence of the Elders in their lives.

 

Another cool thing that happened when we were knocking doors was we found this kid, Jonatas, who had already been taught by the missionaries but I guess they just left him with the Book of Mormon and the first lesson and that was that. We reminded him about everything and he seems like a promising future baptism.  He's already been to church and left all the bad things he's done behind him, all we have to do is teach him and baptize.

 

After going to Jonatas' house we walked over this bridge that went over this trash river.  Literally, there was more trash than water in this thing. So Elder Moore wanted to take a picture.  I took one of him on the bridge and then this lady came up and started saying sarcastic stuff about how her country is so beautiful and how were talking pictures of the rotten river.  I just had Elder Moore talk to her because I wasn't about to take the heat for the picture that he wanted me to take, haha.  It was super awkward and I felt kind of bad.

 

In Brazil they have this stuff called Acai. It's a fruit that grows on this coconut looking tree. They grind it up and make it into a paste and make sort of an ice cream out of it.  It's super bomb.  We've been looking for a good place here that has it but it's kind of rare I guess but, we found one. They put granola, peanut powder, and bananas on it and it's super good, especially since it's so hot here.

 

My companion this transfer is super legit.  We're good friends and sometimes I laugh so hard that I can't breath because we joke around so much.  GOOD TIMES.  I found out that he stayed in Biddulph Hall at BYUI a year before me and that he knows one of the Elders from my district in the Provo MTC.  It's a small world when you're Mormon!  He also helps me with some Portuguese stuff, which is cool.  I feel like we speak way too much English though.  It's super hard not to when you can't express yourself as well in Portuguese.

 

We had some sweet successes on Sunday. Our investigator who went to church last week got baptized on Sunday. He reeeaaaally needed baptism. The Mission President passed him for baptism and everything was good for Sunday. We baptized him before church so he could be confirmed during Sacrament meeting.  I could just tell that he had been wanting repentance for a long time but just didn't know where to find it.  He was so sincere about changing, it was awesome. He left everything. His girlfriend, cigarettes, drinking... and his past!  Repentance is amazing and can only be done through Jesus Christ and his atonement.  This man was a reference from a member in the ward. THIS IS WHY WE NEED GOOD REFERENCES FROM THE MEMBERS! To save people who are ready to be saved! That was something our bishop really stressed in his talk this week. He challenged every person in the ward to give us 1 reference. It was awesome.  He told us to go to every class on Sunday and pick up references. So we did.  It was fun, but disappointingly we only got like 5. It's a start!

 

We had 5 investigators come to church this week and we finally got Isaias to come, Kelly's boyfriend. We want to baptize this guy so bad. He knows his bible so we get into some bashes with him sometimes but the discussions with him have gotten better. He liked church.

 

We also got Paulos' kids to come to church. I had to go get them with a member while Davi was getting confirmed. But Paulo (the guy that owns the bar) basically did our job for us when we were talking about baptism with his kids. We read Alma 7 and he just took the wheel and explained to them what baptism is. And he said, "You're both getting baptized".   Sweet. WE just show up and the work was done for us.  We left that discussion laughing haha.

Well I think I covered everything.... Love you all.  Love the church. Love being on a mission!

 

Elder Dallin Stephen Carroll