Week Nineteen:
"This week has by far been the fastest week of my life. Im sad to report
that our district is completely broken! theres been a huge discord
between the Brazilian and the Argentinian Elders(I´ll leave out the
details), and since my companion is district leader, we´ve had to run
around our entire district and sort out the mess. We have a lot of new
blood in the district, lots of new missionaries that dont know whats
right from left... so as Élder Rumsey played judge, i played babysitter!
It was frustrating having to cancel our oppointments just to satisfy
the needs of the other elders, but overall it was a cool experience...
One of the new elders i worked with was Élder Sepúlveda. Hes an elder that has a lot of adversities in his life. He has an extreme case of OCD(He spent two hours one morning cleaning our shower), and doesnt have a trace of social skills. the whole day of the split i worked and encouraged him to open his mouth and teach, knowing that we had a promising investigator to visit before we returned home. i worked patiently with him as he stuttered through our street contacts, he progressed little if at all throughout the day. i soon found ourselves walking to our final appoinment of the day, thinking to myself how we could be sucessful. our visit was with a young and fairly wealthy coupple named Diana and Flávio. as soon as we sat down, Diana asked,´´I want to know exactly why your church is the only true church.`` I knew from our first contact with her in the week prior that she was extremely inteligent, and that she´d nail me if i said anything but the absolute truth. I took a deep breath and dove into the lesson. Through the spirit, i was able answer any question and satisfy any doubt she had, but something was off tune. Every time i turned to Élder Sepúlveda for an answer, comment, or testimony, he turned beet red and looked to the floor. he was scared to death to testify of what he knew! i knew that our investigators would not be able to feel the spirit with our two testimonies, missionary work is not a one man show! I gave Flávio a scripture to read, while he read i earnestly prayed to our heavenly father to bless ever one of us with the spirit. I prayed for the courage and faith in Élder Sepúlveda to grow, so he could contribute to the lesson as well. When it came time to explain the Book of Mormon, i looked to the elder and said,´´can you explain the Book of Mormon for us elder?`` Something not short of a miracle happened. His mouth opened, and the terstimony flow without hesitance or stutter. The talkative Diana was silent for the first time, and tears brimmed their eyes a the spirit worked within them. My jaw dropped so hard im surprised it didnt hit the floor! The new elder was an enitrely different person, truely an instrument of the lord. they anxiously marked another visit with us, and thanks to Élder Sepúlveda and his courage to overcome his shortcomings, we planted a strong seed in their hearts which will hopefully blossom to baptism."
One of the new elders i worked with was Élder Sepúlveda. Hes an elder that has a lot of adversities in his life. He has an extreme case of OCD(He spent two hours one morning cleaning our shower), and doesnt have a trace of social skills. the whole day of the split i worked and encouraged him to open his mouth and teach, knowing that we had a promising investigator to visit before we returned home. i worked patiently with him as he stuttered through our street contacts, he progressed little if at all throughout the day. i soon found ourselves walking to our final appoinment of the day, thinking to myself how we could be sucessful. our visit was with a young and fairly wealthy coupple named Diana and Flávio. as soon as we sat down, Diana asked,´´I want to know exactly why your church is the only true church.`` I knew from our first contact with her in the week prior that she was extremely inteligent, and that she´d nail me if i said anything but the absolute truth. I took a deep breath and dove into the lesson. Through the spirit, i was able answer any question and satisfy any doubt she had, but something was off tune. Every time i turned to Élder Sepúlveda for an answer, comment, or testimony, he turned beet red and looked to the floor. he was scared to death to testify of what he knew! i knew that our investigators would not be able to feel the spirit with our two testimonies, missionary work is not a one man show! I gave Flávio a scripture to read, while he read i earnestly prayed to our heavenly father to bless ever one of us with the spirit. I prayed for the courage and faith in Élder Sepúlveda to grow, so he could contribute to the lesson as well. When it came time to explain the Book of Mormon, i looked to the elder and said,´´can you explain the Book of Mormon for us elder?`` Something not short of a miracle happened. His mouth opened, and the terstimony flow without hesitance or stutter. The talkative Diana was silent for the first time, and tears brimmed their eyes a the spirit worked within them. My jaw dropped so hard im surprised it didnt hit the floor! The new elder was an enitrely different person, truely an instrument of the lord. they anxiously marked another visit with us, and thanks to Élder Sepúlveda and his courage to overcome his shortcomings, we planted a strong seed in their hearts which will hopefully blossom to baptism."
Week Twenty:
"
Wanna know how to say ´´baptism`` in portuguese? thats right, we broke the near 3 month dry spot here in nilópolis with the baptism of Juciara! Her road was hard, a great ammount of faith was required of her to permenantly leave her source of income to atteand church and be baptised. She actually lives on the same street as us, so naturally we visit her often; her and her mother Solange are pretty much family. Shes a funny lady, shes always whispering, convienced that the bandits are always tuning in on our conversations... shes really does have great faith though, it was great to see her follow through with her committment to change.
the baptism was awesome! Once again the members wrapped their arms around their soon to be newest member(confirmation is next sunday). they already have had many family home evenings and other events hosted soley for the purpose of welcoming Juciara into the ward. the day of the baptism we were busy cleaning the font for the baptism, when Álvaro busted into the chapel, with two big cakes and a big grin on his face. he anonymously placed them in the kitchen, so happy to contribute. its strenghtened my testimony to watch him grow and flourish in the gospel, the fruits of the gospel are delicious!
Its really been heating up here, in more ways than one. the winters not even over technically and it feels like im melting in the streets. something to get used to i guess, its only gonna get worse! the politics here are heating up, every canidate has a theme song, which they blast at full volume as they drive down the streets. im really getting annoyed, it wrecks the spirit when they drive by during our lessons. the one good thing the heat does bring is the season of churrasco! We´ve had several barbeques these past two weeks, im sending some picctures for everyone!
the conflicts in our district are heating up as well, once again we spent a lot of time our of our area fixing problems. I worked a lot with Élder Alves in Nova Iguaçu, one day we spent our whole afternoon in a remote part of is area called Miguel Couto. it sits right in the forset, so we did some hiking in some serious jungle, very different from my urban enivronment in Nilópolis! plenty of cows and horse drawn chariots, very third world.
Despite the lack of work in our own area, God ahs blessed us with tons of sucess, besides the baptism of Juciara. We are currently working in 48 households! and thats only counting the investigators that are progressing. i still dont know how were able to contact and teach that many people in the time we had, our challenge now is to give all of them the attention they will need... trabalho trabalho trabalho!"
Wanna know how to say ´´baptism`` in portuguese? thats right, we broke the near 3 month dry spot here in nilópolis with the baptism of Juciara! Her road was hard, a great ammount of faith was required of her to permenantly leave her source of income to atteand church and be baptised. She actually lives on the same street as us, so naturally we visit her often; her and her mother Solange are pretty much family. Shes a funny lady, shes always whispering, convienced that the bandits are always tuning in on our conversations... shes really does have great faith though, it was great to see her follow through with her committment to change.
the baptism was awesome! Once again the members wrapped their arms around their soon to be newest member(confirmation is next sunday). they already have had many family home evenings and other events hosted soley for the purpose of welcoming Juciara into the ward. the day of the baptism we were busy cleaning the font for the baptism, when Álvaro busted into the chapel, with two big cakes and a big grin on his face. he anonymously placed them in the kitchen, so happy to contribute. its strenghtened my testimony to watch him grow and flourish in the gospel, the fruits of the gospel are delicious!
Its really been heating up here, in more ways than one. the winters not even over technically and it feels like im melting in the streets. something to get used to i guess, its only gonna get worse! the politics here are heating up, every canidate has a theme song, which they blast at full volume as they drive down the streets. im really getting annoyed, it wrecks the spirit when they drive by during our lessons. the one good thing the heat does bring is the season of churrasco! We´ve had several barbeques these past two weeks, im sending some picctures for everyone!
the conflicts in our district are heating up as well, once again we spent a lot of time our of our area fixing problems. I worked a lot with Élder Alves in Nova Iguaçu, one day we spent our whole afternoon in a remote part of is area called Miguel Couto. it sits right in the forset, so we did some hiking in some serious jungle, very different from my urban enivronment in Nilópolis! plenty of cows and horse drawn chariots, very third world.
Despite the lack of work in our own area, God ahs blessed us with tons of sucess, besides the baptism of Juciara. We are currently working in 48 households! and thats only counting the investigators that are progressing. i still dont know how were able to contact and teach that many people in the time we had, our challenge now is to give all of them the attention they will need... trabalho trabalho trabalho!"
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