Monday, August 11, 2014

New Area, New Adventures

August 11, 2014

Alrighty well this week was...... interesting.

The transfer was sweet. I got sent to Garanhuns.... the furthest away zone on the mission. It's COLD here. Well it's not SUPER cold,,,, but it's pretty cold when you don't own a jacket... It basically was rainy and cold the whole week so it's safe to say that I will be buying a sweater today. The week was a rush with tons of things to do. The trip to here from Recife just drained me last week on pday and President had planned a leadership meeting for the Zone leaders on Thursday. That means that we had to follow up on the important investigators for a day and get the heck out of Garanhuns.

We followed up on a woman named Luciane who had been smoking for 16 years and was trying to quit because she and her son´s baptism was supposed to be Sunday. We gave her a pep-talk at her door because she was home alone. She had smoked 2 cigarettes that day and we told her she couldn't smoke anymore. I used the 1 Nephi scripture about when Nephi prayed for strength for him to be able to break the cords that his brothers tied him with. We talked about the atonement and the grace that we have the right to use as long as were doing something just. She got pumped and said she didn't know why something so small was controlling her life. We left her with the other elders for the time we were going to be gone(we share a ward with the elders we live with. The complete opposite of the area I just left. Weird)

We had to take the bus back to Recife and leave on Wednesday to be at the meeting in Recife on Thursday. It was terrible! haha. It was raining and cold the day we took the bus to Recife and we had to run to the bus station because my companion put us on the wrong bus haha. We had to get off and run in the rain to not miss the bus. We got there super wet and we got trapped in an air-conditioned bus for about 3 hours until we got to Recife. Thankfully we didn't catch a cold on the way and we stayed the night at some elders house in Recife. I think I went to bed at like 11:30.... way too late. We were DEAD. So we woke up after and had the meeting with President Bigelow. It was cool because there were less Zone Leaders there because there are less zones on the mission now! We got there and met with a few other dudes to rehearse a song to sing in the middle of the meeting. I forgot what the name of the hymn is but it was good. They wanted me to sing the alto part so I did my best in falsetto. It turned out good. The meeting was for us to establish a better way to follow up on the areas. Pres Lanius wanted us to get all the numbers from all the areas and it seemed like it was becoming a robotic thing with little use. It reached the point where it was writing anything down because there wasn't a reason for us to look back at the numbers. It was just to see if the areas were working and was making the leaders go to bed super late. We took 3 hours to figure out how the mission would be followed up on from here on out. We will just be seeing if the missionaries are hitting their daily goals and if they are having any problems with companions, area, people.... etc..... it's awesome. I get to bed earlier now! haha. President also talked about the change in the rules that he made. Needless to say we will be playing soccer today....woohoo!

Well my new area is good. I won't say that it's sweet yet because I've only worked about 3 days in my area. So we will have a better report next week. The members are legit and the ward seems to be strong.  I live with my companion from Chile, Elder Ramos and two more missionaries.  An American, Elder Johnson, and an Argentinian, Elder Resek. Resek is from Rosario dad! His dad was a mission president in Chile and they moved to Buenos Aires. I realized that I don't really like living with 2 more missionaries, but we'll deal with it. You have to be more careful not to offend people or use stuff for too long when you're with 4(washing machine... bathroom... etc.). It's just more complicated and annoying. My companion is awesome. Just a happy guy who always jokes around. It's easy to be happy with this dude. It's something I've noticed about the missionaries from Chile... they're always happy and joking around! He will go home when I do. He was supposed to go after this transfer but it didn't work out with the plane tickets and everything so he's going home with me. That means he'll probably be transferred out of here in 5 weeks and then someone will kill me.

Yesterday we baptized Luciana and her son, Eduardo! This week was great for them because she had the self control to stop smoking and that made it so Eduardo could be baptized tooo!(he's younger than 15) The members supported and it turned out really well. The water was super cold in the font but we got it done haha. Another proof that God's grace can help anyone leave an addiction!

Well family.... time to go. I love you all and hope this week it great! Christ loves us and is the way. Follow him! Love you!

Elder Dallin Stephen Carroll

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