Semana 8
Bom dia
família!! Como está todo mundo??
Second week in
the field! Crazy how fast time is going - I hit 2 months on saturday! We had
lots of really awesome lessons this week, including teaching two
"eleitos", or golden investigators. The first is a young man named
Hugo. He showed up at church last week, and we thought he was a member! Turns
out he´s not, and so we called him and asked if we could come teach him and he
was like, "yes! I´m really interested, I like church a lot and want to
learn more." Wohoo! So this week we went and taught him for 2 hours about
the restoration and the Book of Mormon. He accepted it all and said he would
read the Book of Mormon. The really interesting thing was that both Sister
Carvalho and I felt like we shouldn´t invite him to be baptized yet. It´s crazy
how the spirit works, and doesn´t always say "yes" or "go for
it". However, Hugo did come to church yesterday for all 3 hours. He
participated in Gospel Principles, and was like underlining and taking notes in
the lesson manual book we gave him, and asking me and Sister Carvalho
questions. Our other eleito is a young man named Nelson, who is the boyfriend
of a less active in our ward. We´re in the process of getting them married, and
so had a member involved lesson with two other less actives present. We taught
about the importance of marriage, the book of mormon, and how we can receive
spiritual confirmation that the gospel, the church, and the book of mormon are
important in our lives and true. As we all took turns teaching and testifying
and sharing our testimonies, you could just see tears streaming down Nelson´s
face. In that moment I knew that he knew what we were saying was true - at least
he could feel it burning in his heart. He poured over a Liahona edition that we
gave him, and was so grateful for our visit. When people like Nelson and Hugo
accept our message and really dive into what we give them, THIS is where the
real conversions come from. When people can recognize the contrast in their
lives that living the gospel brings them, they begin to see WHY they need
Christ, our message, and come into the fold of God. I always think of Alma
29:7-8 (I think, I´ve already shared this scripture in an email before) when
this happens. My soul is overcome with joy when I see people converted unto
God. I have a greater desire to learn the doctrine and the language for myself
so that I can become a more effective instrument in the hands of the Lord, and
work miracles with His strength in these people´s lives.
As for the
language again, our STL and her companion (Sister Cieslak, and Sister J. Baker
from Salem UT) came to our apartment one morning to study and help train me. We
did some roleplay and I taught them the whole first lesson, read from the
scriptures and Liahona, and afterwards they said that I have almost no accent
already! Ahh I feel so blessed. Seriously so grateful that I studied French for
so long cause honestly that´s why I can pronounce and speak the language.
Blessings in disguise, and 6 years in the works. Guess it sometimes just takes
years, or a whole lifetime, to realize why things happen the way they do ;)
We had 2 marked
baptisms from this week!! We visited a man named Macau and taught him the 3rd
lesson on the gospel of Jesus Christ and right there asked him to be baptized
and he accepted! But upon a later visit this week discovered he smokes, so
that´s a problem we need to work on with him. Also, he didn´t come to church. So
that pushes us back another week too but I know that this is the Lord´s work
and He can help us accomplish whatever is according to His will, so this is
nothing! Our other marked baptism is Fátima, the wife of a recent convert,
except... they´re not actually married. So. Miracle from last week was that we
got their marriage papers worked out! We had an awesome lesson with her last
night about 2 Nephi 31 and the doctrine of Christ. We invited her to be
baptized after her marriage and she accepted! She is so awesome and takes care
of us missionaries, absolutely loves church and comes every week. So hopefully
all will work out with their marriage coming up and then we can get her
baptized!
And now, I´ll be
honest with you. This week was really hard... physically, mentally, and
spiritually. The most pressing problem is the sheer size of our area - it takes
us an hour alone to walk to church, and at least 2 or 3 hours to walk the
diameter, not sure we haven´t done it all at once. Our problem is that we have a
huge teching group that keeps falling through because we can´t physically teach
everyone. We will take several hours to get to someone´s house, and they´re
hardly ever there when we try to visit, and so then we contact new
investigators and just have a huge pool of new investigators that we never end
up teaching because our primary focus is on our progressing investigators, but
it´s just so hard to actually teach lessons when our area is so big, and so we
aren´t seeing baptisms. Not that our success is measured by baptisms at all.
But it sort of is. And it´s really spiritually exhausting sometimes.
However.
I´m grateful to
be experiencing this right now because it is teaching me humility - that even
though I have the desire to teach these people and follow up on contacts and
make it to appointments when we say we will, sometimes it´s just not physically
possible. And we just have to do all we can to prove to the Lord that we are
TRYING. Even if it doesn´t come to pass, we are trying. And that the fruits of
these labors might be something different than we would expect - maybe not
baptisms, maybe not these investigators, but maybe something... different.
Something we can´t see. And maybe this is all just for our own "profit and
learning". I´m not sure. But I am learning humility and patience and faith
and long-suffering, and for that I am grateful.
The work here is
also physically exhausting. One of the most relaxing and relieving feelings is
when at the end of the day, I can wash my aching, dirty feet in the shower.
Every time I do this, I think of my Savior washing the feet of His Disciples.
In this moment, I can begin to feel a portion of the relief that those Apostles
felt - and how much more so if it were the Savior, Jesus Christ, washing their
feet? In this moment I think of the Atonement, too. That not only can we be
physically clean but through Christ we can be internally, and eternally, clean.
Through His blood, we can experience the REAL relief and rest from sin and the
burdens of this world.
I´m learning so
much here.
As for logistics
of my mission life -
Sorry I
sometimes forget to inlclude captions on the pictures I send home - you guessed
right on most of them! McDonalds (FINALLY, so amazing. McDonalds is always
better international).
Açai is literally the greatest thing ever, I´m addicted. It reminds me of MonaVie too haha. Dad, where did they get their fruit from? Manaus? Which region?
Açai is literally the greatest thing ever, I´m addicted. It reminds me of MonaVie too haha. Dad, where did they get their fruit from? Manaus? Which region?
The açai, and
pictures of Sister Carvalho "pregnant" was because she hit her 9
months this week, and I´m her first "filha" or daughter in the
mission! (I´m the first sister she´s trained) So she´s my mãe and I´m her filha
so we had a celebration on her anniversary and naturally took some fun
pictures, and celebrated with the açai!
Dad you
mentioned the governmental issues going on here, EVERYONE is so upset with the
recent manifestation. I obviously don´t know a whole lot about it, other than
as of this month I got 2 times richer - it´s now 3.40 Real per US Dollar. And,
yesterday the entire country was in an uproar - I´m sure you saw the news but
Natal, São Paulo, Fortaleza, EVERYONE went crazy. There were police everywhere,
and you could just hear fireworks (hopefully?) going off everywhere and it was
just crazy. Needless to say contacting was a little hard haha.
THE PACKAGE LAST
WEEK WAS PERFECT. Peanut Butter, Nutella, Oreos, and granola has never made me
happier in my life. Send more. Por favor. And granola bars. Just. Any food. I´m
usually starving, because Brazilians only eat one meal a day - lunch. They
never eat dinner, and if they are ever hungry at other times of the day it´s
just a snack. And of course I have a Brazilian companion who´s used to this so.
A little buffer would be nice :)
Also, we only
get letters like once a month on an assigned day. So. It´s probably better that
you just cancel the Mission Ties account - no use because things won´t get here
any faster. Don´t worry about it though!
They drink Pero
here!!! I was so excited, everyone was shocked when I said that my family
drinks it at home haha. Also, they drink mate here too! Someone tell Michael
Lowry (twins?) haha that stuff is weird but I like it. They have another
version of it that is really bitter, not a huge fan yet but give me some time.
Also I´ve had some really crazy different and good fruits that I´ve never
before heard of or seen in my life. Really cool.
Anyway, that´s
really it for this week. I´m holding up, don´t worry about me. Just send
prayers my way!
I love this gospel,
love this work, and know this is where I need to be. I just need to learn HOW
to be what I need to be. (That´s the goal, right?)
AMO VOCÊS COM
TODO MEU CORAÇÃO
Sister Brown
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| Emily has never liked bananas…so this is a big deal! She talked about leaning to eat bananas. |
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| Opps! I guess Emily forgot sun screen! |
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