Hey Everyone!
Well another freakin fast week flew by. Man, it´s hard to keep my head on straight.
The week started with district meeting. Elder Amauri da Silva asked me to give the training so I compared investigators to portraits each one is unique and in order to help them you have to get to know them and paint the picture. It was basically about how to ask edifying questions to provide for their needs. I created fake investigators with key information that the elders had to discover through the asking the right kind of questions. It went really well.
After district meeting I did an exchange with Elder L. Smith in Chácara Santana. It went really well and we had some incredible experiences. We meet a man named Joáo who was watching us in the street. When we made the contact he invited us into his home and he was way open. He also talked a lot about the Masons because practically everyone is a mason here. He said I radiate a light that he had never seen before so that made me feel good. At night we were waiting for a the bus and a woman with a beer can walked up to us and said, "Hey elders!" We got talking and found out she was taught by the missionaries in another city but could never be baptized because of her boyfriend. We marked an appointment and she said she wanted to join the church. Elder Smith told her to stop drinking and she could so she threw her full can of beer into the street. It was awesome!
Wednesday we had interviews with Pres. Jackson. He talked about not whitewashing our difficulties after they pass. Things are hard sometimes and we can´t pretend like they weren´t after they´re over because then we don´t learn anything. I´m getting to know Pres. Jackson so much better now and I appreciate him even more than I did. I´ll be really sad when he heads back to Utah in July.
We also meet a really rude man. We received a referral from a girl in our ward who is dating a non member so we headed over there and his dad answered. He freaked out and said he would not let his son talk to us and that our church is a cult that enslaves people. We said, "Unfortunately, we believe differently than you." and he said, "Unfortunately for you!" I wanted to punch him in the face for the rest of the day.
Friday I did an exchange with Elder Hickenlooper in Raneiri. I freakin love Elder Hickenlooper! It was so fun. They are having some difficulties with one of their investigators Sergio who is determined to be baptized. His wife, however, kicked him out of their house when he told her we would be baptized last week. So it was marked for Saturday morning and we were all there ready, waiting and he never showed up. Later he called them and remarked for Sunday morning and again he didn´t show up.
Saturday morning we had a service project cleaning out the overgrown garden of a family in the ward, and I thought gardening was hard in the states! We basically had to dig out the whole garden with hoes and hands. I got way sunburned. The family gave us a mountain of ice cream after so I almost got sick from all the creamy goodness.
Nelçi and Gabriella´s baptisms were marked for Saturday night. It was so crazy in the chapel. Their was a youth dance and a relief society party going on at the same time and you know what happened? The power went out! We all just sat there for an hour waiting for the power company to come. They fixed it but then the power went out again after ten minutes. The bishop was yelling at us, "Elders! Use your authority to bring the lights back." In the end we had to remark everything for Sunday morning before church. Everything went well in the end and Nelçi and Gabriella are the newest members of Ala Aracatí!
Sunday night we had dinner with Gildevan and Karla. They are a great couple that we are teaching that need to get married. They made us dinner and we watched 'Together Forever'. After dinner we marked a day to sign up for the wedding and Gildevan asked Karla to officially marry him... in English! It was awesome!
Anyway, that´s my week. I hope you all enjoyed it! Love you all!
No comments:
Post a Comment