Monday, May 19, 2014

Normal and Boring

May 12, 2014

This week was normal and boring. But I'll try to excite things for y'all to make it more entertaining to read my letter.

So we don't have anyone to teach. We kicked everyone to the curb and started knocking doors. That means we have to stay excited and alert and full of the spirit. Oh and we have to be daring and not take no for an answer. So our usual contact is like this....(Landon, pay attention.)

"Hello friend... How are you doing?"
"Good, Thanks to God"
"Great! What's your name??"
"so-and-so"
"Pleased to meet you.. I'm Elder Carroll and this is my friend Elder W. Ferreira, and we're missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And we have a message about our Savior Jesus Christ which can help you and your family to be more happy and have more peace. So do you have time to receive our message??"
"I have time, you can start talking" (we give the lesson at the door)
"Great... Do you believe that that Bible is the word of God??"
"Yes"
"Cool, can I tell a story from the Bible to you?"
"yeah sure"
....(John 3:3-5/last chapter in Mathew where Jesus talks about preaching and baptizing people)......
"So as you can see... everyone has to be baptized to enter into God, and God calls his servants to baptize and preach to people. We are representatives of Jesus Christ and this is our purpose, Do you think God sent us here coincidentally??"
"no."

And then we go from there depending on their beliefs/religion/willingness to serve God/be baptized. Sometimes we ask these 3 questions too:

Do you believe in God?
Do you believe that he loves us?
Why?
What are you willing to do for God?

So from there we see how willing the person is to serve God and we basically get them to bear their testimony. It's a great tactic and it can be used right in the person's doorway.  It's great to use for women who are home alone and people who don't have that much time. But our objective is for sure to get in the house and start teaching the person whether it be in that moment, or another day.

Contacts are funny. The other day we were teaching a chick in her doorway/gate and the conversation was great. Smart girl with some great ideas and everyone was really focused on the subject that was being discussed. All of a sudden, a 10-inch lizard jumps from the top of the cement wall onto her head. And just chills there for a sec. The girl went nuts! She brushed it off and it jumped back on the wall and scurried away. We were laughing hysterically and she laughed too. The mission is interesting.

So transfers were today and wait for it.....drum rollllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll I'm staying here with my companion AGAIN. So we've been together for 4 months and it'll be like 5.5 when we're done with this transfer. A WHOLE NOTHER TRANSFER. Caramba, we're going to die here. When Elder Flemming(assistant) called passing the transfer information along I got surprised when he said we were going to stay and he was like "uhhh, you thought you were going to be transferred??"....."sim"....."Well we need you guys there so be happy! woooo!!"  Flemming always calls us with tons of excitement. we even took pics with friends telling them that someone was going to get transferred. hahah But it's good that we're staying.  We've had a lot of success here and the members really love us. We're just gonna have to make up some ways to meet new people(English class)... so this transfer isn't so stagnant. It'll be alright. We're just gonna get ready to baptize more people!

This is Christs' church and the restoration happened! Joseph Smith was a prophet and we have a prophet today! I'm grateful to know these things. I've seen a lot of appreciation for the Gospel here in Brasil, even more than in the United States. People testify that the Gospel changes lives and then use their own lives as a witness. A really Strong witness. You can see that it it weren't for the Gospel, the people would be different and wouldn't be as happy. It's a proven fact! Christ Lives!

Happy Mother's Day again Mom! I love you so much and am so grateful that you're my mom! You're the best mom in the world!  Thank you for everything you do to make us happy!

Love,
Elder Dallin Stephen Carroll

No comments:

Post a Comment