November 25, 2013
Alrighty,
This week was super normal, nothing that great to report. The mission reached the goal of 200 BAPTISMS for the month once again. 209 people were baptized! That's a lot of people. President Lanius is super happy with the mission and so is the Lord! The assistants said the President was dancing in the mission office, haha. The most serious man alive... dancing haha. Good times.
This week started off with a good pday in the Center(the city). We went to the huge fair that's there on Monday and bought some cool stuff. I bought the family some stuff for Christmas. Mom, I bought a nativity for you. It's better than the other one but it's still made of clay so I hope it makes it to Georgia. But it's authentic and smaller/better quality so it'll make it. I have faith.
This week we just taught the people we already found. It was a good week. We didn't have to run around with our heads cut off and we didn't have lolly gagging time either. We just went from investigator to investigator. We have some really great people we're teaching right now but all of them have problems they have to resolve before being baptized.
It's normal but usually there's at least one person in your teaching group that has potential to be baptized the following week. We have none. I think my area is hard... just a thought. When everyone else around you baptizes and you're working your butt off trying to find people you begin to notice the differences in areas. In our area, it's hard for the people to get to church. The Church sits in the middle of a neighborhood of apartment buildings and that's where the rich stuck-up people live, so you know they won't go. Then you have the rest of our area.... which is favela and middle class neighborhoods where there's one bus that passes every 2 hours. And there are some places where the people have to get 2 buses to arrive at church. It's a miracle when we have people in the chapel even though we call and remind everyone about church and even go to some people's houses. You gotta have people in the chapel to have baptisms. It's great.
This week we re-met up with this family that we met during the week in the area. I thought José had kicked them to the curb. Apparently not. Fernando and Graca are another "married" couple. They are super awesome. We returned to their house after passing one month without going. When we got there we asked how was the Book Of Mormon? And Graça said she had read the part we marked, prayed, and recieved an answer that the book was true. Wow! You gotta check up on your investigators! She said waited for us to return to tell us what had happened but we never went back. Fubecas! (slackers) Fernando read but didn't pray.
But these people are awesome. They understand everything we say and believe! And they fed us too. That's when you know you've found some good people. We're working with them. They would have gone to church but something happened to her mom at the last minute and she had to go visit her. They said they were ready and everything but they received the call at the last minute. Bummer. But we've already taught everything to them. They just have to get married and Fernando has to stop drinking and they're as good as baptized.
Their next door neighbors are good too, Nilson and his wife. They have to get married. This dude has a band and is the singer. I sang a hymn for him and he really liked it. It was "Brilha Meiga Luz"... I forgot the name in English. Plug it in your google translate. He sang a song about his mom. It was cool I guess. The other day their 2 year old son set their mattress on fire and walked away and almost burned the house down so Nilson was super ready to hear "the word of God". We taught the last half of the Restoration to him and the apostasy and Joseph Smith totally made sense to him. Simple guy, doesn't complicate things like other people do. It's refreshing to teach them and have people that understand. He'll read the Book Of Mormon and get an answer from God that it's real.
We knocked this one door this week. It was this Catholic guy. Super haughty. From the start of our message he started talking about how all the churches are true and how God knew that the Apostasy would happen, and that's why he gave us our freedom of choice, because all the churches teach good things and whatever church we choose to follow has all the truth we need. He also tried to convert us to his way of thinking. He said that believing that one church is right is immature and that one day we'll think like him. I bore testimony and said I would never think like him. Think about it. 8 generations in the same faith in my family. Could it be a question of maturity? No. After the lesson I thought about my ancestors as pioneers who crossed the plains with handcarts and how much they sacrificed just to get to a place that was safe to be a member of the church. The dude doesn't know what he's talking about. We left a little bit bugged.
The zone is just on a roll. We've hit our weekly goal 3 weeks in a row and we've got 4 marked people for next week. Already there! The Lord is blessing us for our efforts in finding tons of new people. Knocking tons of doors. It's just the way it works. When you work, the Lord works. We'll have a leadership meeting this week and I'm pretty sure Presidente is gonna be super happy with us. It'll be a good one. The last one he burned us. This time he'll congratulate us. I'm really grateful to be a missionary in this time. It's amazing to see how things are speeding up. Our Ward mission leader is awesome. He put together this thing for the members to give; a christmas dvd to their friends and a Book Of Mormon too. We're the guys that will give it to them and they'll also receive a message of the restoration. I don't think there is a better Christmas present. The talk Elder Ballard gave about taking someone to church before Christmas hasn't taken affect yet. We're hoping the members will remember, because we don't have a chance to remind them because we don't eat in their homes. We receive money. Well, it's been real. I hope everyone is doing well and that ya'll have a great week. The Church is true. God Bless.
Elder Dallin Stephen Carroll
Alrighty,
This week was super normal, nothing that great to report. The mission reached the goal of 200 BAPTISMS for the month once again. 209 people were baptized! That's a lot of people. President Lanius is super happy with the mission and so is the Lord! The assistants said the President was dancing in the mission office, haha. The most serious man alive... dancing haha. Good times.
This week started off with a good pday in the Center(the city). We went to the huge fair that's there on Monday and bought some cool stuff. I bought the family some stuff for Christmas. Mom, I bought a nativity for you. It's better than the other one but it's still made of clay so I hope it makes it to Georgia. But it's authentic and smaller/better quality so it'll make it. I have faith.
This week we just taught the people we already found. It was a good week. We didn't have to run around with our heads cut off and we didn't have lolly gagging time either. We just went from investigator to investigator. We have some really great people we're teaching right now but all of them have problems they have to resolve before being baptized.
It's normal but usually there's at least one person in your teaching group that has potential to be baptized the following week. We have none. I think my area is hard... just a thought. When everyone else around you baptizes and you're working your butt off trying to find people you begin to notice the differences in areas. In our area, it's hard for the people to get to church. The Church sits in the middle of a neighborhood of apartment buildings and that's where the rich stuck-up people live, so you know they won't go. Then you have the rest of our area.... which is favela and middle class neighborhoods where there's one bus that passes every 2 hours. And there are some places where the people have to get 2 buses to arrive at church. It's a miracle when we have people in the chapel even though we call and remind everyone about church and even go to some people's houses. You gotta have people in the chapel to have baptisms. It's great.
This week we re-met up with this family that we met during the week in the area. I thought José had kicked them to the curb. Apparently not. Fernando and Graca are another "married" couple. They are super awesome. We returned to their house after passing one month without going. When we got there we asked how was the Book Of Mormon? And Graça said she had read the part we marked, prayed, and recieved an answer that the book was true. Wow! You gotta check up on your investigators! She said waited for us to return to tell us what had happened but we never went back. Fubecas! (slackers) Fernando read but didn't pray.
But these people are awesome. They understand everything we say and believe! And they fed us too. That's when you know you've found some good people. We're working with them. They would have gone to church but something happened to her mom at the last minute and she had to go visit her. They said they were ready and everything but they received the call at the last minute. Bummer. But we've already taught everything to them. They just have to get married and Fernando has to stop drinking and they're as good as baptized.
Their next door neighbors are good too, Nilson and his wife. They have to get married. This dude has a band and is the singer. I sang a hymn for him and he really liked it. It was "Brilha Meiga Luz"... I forgot the name in English. Plug it in your google translate. He sang a song about his mom. It was cool I guess. The other day their 2 year old son set their mattress on fire and walked away and almost burned the house down so Nilson was super ready to hear "the word of God". We taught the last half of the Restoration to him and the apostasy and Joseph Smith totally made sense to him. Simple guy, doesn't complicate things like other people do. It's refreshing to teach them and have people that understand. He'll read the Book Of Mormon and get an answer from God that it's real.
We knocked this one door this week. It was this Catholic guy. Super haughty. From the start of our message he started talking about how all the churches are true and how God knew that the Apostasy would happen, and that's why he gave us our freedom of choice, because all the churches teach good things and whatever church we choose to follow has all the truth we need. He also tried to convert us to his way of thinking. He said that believing that one church is right is immature and that one day we'll think like him. I bore testimony and said I would never think like him. Think about it. 8 generations in the same faith in my family. Could it be a question of maturity? No. After the lesson I thought about my ancestors as pioneers who crossed the plains with handcarts and how much they sacrificed just to get to a place that was safe to be a member of the church. The dude doesn't know what he's talking about. We left a little bit bugged.
Elder Dallin Stephen Carroll
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