World Cup is Over

 This is a picture of the wedding that happened a few weeks ago that Dallin was so excited about!

July 14, 2014

Hello folks.

Glad to be able to write to you all one more time on this glorious day. I'm pleased to inform you all that this keyboard does not have a question mark, so forgive me in advance.

This week was a normal world cup week. Complicated.

We started out the week with a leadership meeting with President. The man is awesome. He's brushing up on his Portuguese so he takes a while to get his ideas out, but the ideas that he expresses are brilliant.  He's changing our point of view.  He really wants our baptisms to be converts.  We talked about the way the mission marks baptisms.  Before he got here when we passed our weekly numbers from the week, we used to only pass marked people for the people we were going to baptize that week.  He said our vision would be very limited if we did that and said that we have to pass the number of marked people we have for the next 3 weeks.  He says it will let us be able to have a better vision of our investigators.  It's a little more relaxing that way without the assistants breathing down our necks, but that doesn't mean that we can relax.  We feel that he has a great love for the gospel and a strong desire to please the Lord. He also talks a lot about how our missions will benefit us after our missions.  He suggested that we speak English in our houses so that the Americans don't return speaking like children and so the other missionaries will be able to get good jobs when they get back. It's hard to speak English.  Luckily Elder Varela speaks a little bit of English, so he understands a lot of what I say.  It helps us a lot when we don't want people to know what were talking about...hehe.

We booted Osiane. We talked a lot about the Book Of Mormon and even taught the plan of salvation just using scriptures from the Book Of Mormon.  It was one of those lessons where the investigator asks tons of questions and you have to explain everything in excruciating detail.  By the end of the lesson, we were practically sweating and we felt good about it.  She said she believed in EVERYTHING we said.  She also said that she doesn't agree with the idea that there exists only one true church of Jesus Christ..... You've got to be kidding me.  She believes in Joseph Smith, the Book Of Mormon, and everything else we taught, but does not believe there is one true church. This is truly an idea from Satan himself.  It was sad, but we can say that we did our best,... she just didn't accept.

This week was interesting with the world cup. Brasil got destroyed by Germany and everyone was fuming mad. It's all people talk about, and everyone blames the government and Felipão, the coach. We went to Flavio/Edinetes house the day after and the kids were all home when they were supposed to be at school.  They said they went to school and nobody was there because everyone was so embarrassed that Brasil lost so bad. People didn't go to work and everyone was just revolted. Marcos was happy because he's so cynical, but the majority of the people we talked to were just disturbed. Katiuce told us that during the game Edinete and Flavio were yelling at the screen saying stuff like "Ahhhh I don't even wanna live here anymore!  I'm going to move to Elder Carroll's country"... and "these monkeys don't know how to do anything!!" .... Katiuce said that nobody could talk to Flavio because he was so angry.  People literally cried while watching the game.... In our apartment complex everyone was just yelling no over and over and over again.  Futebol is everything here. And in spite of the whoop'n Brasil took, people still rooted for Germany in the final because they can't stand Argentina.  That's what we call a real rivalry.  I bought today's newspaper as a souvenir.

As far as work went, this week was a bust. We had some success with one woman named Manoela though. We taught her in front of her house with her 4 month old baby. She was REALLY receptive to our message and said that she felt the presence of God.  She agreed to be baptized and she agreed to going to church but didn't go because it rained a ton and all the roads were super flooded.  Few people went that we invited because of the rain, so it was kinda sad on Sunday, but we're going to have loads of people in the church this week. We also are going to work with Raynas' mom this week to see if we can't throw her in the water.

Well loved ones. This is the true gospel. No doubt in my mind. Life wouldn't make sense if it were false. Christ is the center of EVERYTHING, and our lives need to revolve around Him.

Love you all...
Elder Dallin Stephen Carroll