What Can I Do with 64 Days?

August 25, 2014

BOM DIA.

Well I hope y'all have had a good week where you're at. My week was normal, a lot of missionary work and little time to do anything else. The phrase 

'lose yourself in the work" is as much spiritual as it is literal. You don't have time to think about anything outside of the work of the Lord so you literally almost forget who you are and what you liked to do and how you even used to think. Sometimes I feel like I've changed a ton, and other times I feel like I am the same exact person as I was when I left. I think y'all will be the judges haha. 64 days..... what can I do with 64 days?.... Like dad wrote to me, there really isn't anything to do but work. I don't even understand why dudes get super trunky at the end and just stop working.... How can you be satisfied with yourself at the end of the day?  My goal is to not be able to regret anything when I get back. That doesn't mean that I'll be perfect, but it does mean that I have to repent every day and make sure my conscience is clean going into the next lesson or treinamento so the Spirit can do his thing. Elder Bednar said that we need to get out of the Spirits way so that he can do his job. That means that we don't need to put in all of our speculations into a lesson to show how good we are or how much we know. You'd be surprised at how many missionaries do that! I'm guilty too, I think. The interior is where you need to just teach the basics and hope the person understands because it's hard to see if the people are understanding here. They just nod their head and say yes when you ask them if they understood and when you tell them to say something in their own words, that's when you know if they know what the heck you're talking about. I've learned that we have to teach fast and concise, because these people get tired of thinking, just like children. You lose their interest and the lesson suffers. All the missionaries I've taught with or done divisions with have said that I need to break down the principles for the people to be able to chew and digest. They need milk, not meat.

We invited so many people to church this week and so many people said they would go. Saturday night when we were planning we were getting excited to have so many people at church. Saturday we followed up on like 6 people and they all said that it was confirmed. Then Sunday morning we tried talking to them to see if they were going but they all had excuses and didn't go.

 BUT, We had a little miracle this week. We were knocking doors in the small alleyways talking with all the interesting people in the abyss and we found this kid named Jefferson.! 16 years old and just looks like a good kid. We taught the Restoration to him and we could tell he was understanding everything, which is rare. His dad entered when we were about to talk about Joseph Smith and the Restoration and he just went off on a tangent that had nothing to do with anything. It's normal. We cut him off and said all the necessary things to Jeffereson and invited him to church thinking that his Dad had ruined everything. But Sunday morning when we went to church we saw him there sitting by himself in the Young Men's room.... I think we had taught the simplest lesson I had ever taught in my life and it touched him enough to get him out of bed to walk like a mile to the church. It was great. We can't underestimate the power of the spirit to move the people who recognize to voice of the Lord. Jefferson belongs to the sisters' area so well pass him to them when we talk to them on the phone tonight.

Last night my comp, Elder Ramos and I gave a training(I don't know what the heck it is in English alright?) to the ward missionaries. Lídio, the ward mission leader wanted us to talk about their roles as ward missionaries while he pulled up a list of people on the computer(which took forever). And we completely winged the whole thing and it was incredible. I think that's something that I've learned on my mission. How to wing things. We get put in so many situations where we have to improvise that we have to be good at thinking on our toes. Ramos has been here for about the same time that I have so between us we have a lot of experience and a lot of missionary ideas in our brains just ready for us to grab when we need them. The best part was that right after we gave the whole training, one of the ladies asked me where I was from in Brasil..... Do you realize what this means??? It means I can be super pasty white and still trip people up with my Brazilian accent! Even after speaking non-stop for about an hour...That was my goal when I got my call and we gotter done. Heavenly Father helped me out a lot.

Well that's about it folks. I love you all and hope y'all have a great week!

Elder Dallin Stephen Carroll