1/21
Today was
freaking amazing. We went to visit one of our contacts and the
conversations we had were the absolute best thing ever. We sat down to
talk about the restoration, and he started pulling out sincere
questions from verses he had memorized in the bible and he really liked
our answers. We got very in depth into the restoration and prophecies in
the bible, and to conclude, he told us about the difference between
convincing and converting and that he wasn't interested in being
convinced because he was trying to be converted to Jesus Christ and I
got so excited it probably scared him, but he was a really cool guy.
After we got taught by out new investigator, we went over to Mateus's
family to give them a message and visit with them. As soon as we enter,
the air changes, these people prepare themselves to be taught, we walk
in and everyone pulls out their copy of the Book of Mormon, and then we
all study together. We probably have our most in depth studies with that
family, they are so cool! Our messages always end up being an hour or
more (sometimes more sermons than messages) but this family is prepared
to hear us: they have a little girl who can barely read regular words,
and still she pulls out her copy of the scriptures and tries her very
best to follow along with what we're reading. What great people.
1/22
Today
was great! We taught a lesson to Cleide's husband who told us that he
had been bragging to his friends that "the Mormon church (he pronounced
"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" in a weird way) is the
best church there is", which was great to hear, he's a super great guy
and going to be baptized next week. We taught him a lesson about tithing
and all the good that comes out of it and he was like, "Elders, I'm
going to have to stop you there", so Liljenquist and I sighed sadly, and
he continues, "It's easy to see that tithing is good, of course we'll
pay from now on" which kind of blew our minds, this is a really cool
guy, and I love it when people understand our lessons! We also had lunch
today with a lady who managed to talk for literally a half hour without
pause. Liljenquist warned me to fill up my plate beforehand, if you eat
fast enough, she doesn't realize it's not physically possible to
understand half of the things she says because she's speaking so fast.
The Irma did give us an amazing reference though: Her daughter who lives
pretty close to us. We visited her and she's in a pretty low place
right now, but was very accepting of the Gospel, so we gave her a Book
of Mormon, and we're heading back tomorrow. We also had another zone
reunion today. I gave a training on finding happiness in the mission and
I got a lot of very nice compliments on it. Everyone here seems to be
falling into depression, but afterwards some said they were feeling
better, I really hope it made a difference.
1/23
Even
if I do the rest of my mission wrong I'll know that I did today right.
Today we got a reference, which was cool because this was one of the
first times we got a reference from this ward, it led to a less well off
family, we started teaching the family but the lesson got kind of
weird: We talked about Joseph Smith and Elder Liljenquist asked them if
they wanted to see evidence he was a Prophet and they just started
shaking their head, "no, no" and Liljenquist paused like, "no, you don't
understand, this is evidence that Joseph was a prophet" and again they
were like, "no, we don't want to see it" before finally relenting. The
wife has the gift of dreams and visions but didn't feel ready for more
responsibility, she said that she felt like locking herself in her room
to escape but that God told her to go listen to the message of the two
boys, before we came. She also told us she knows that there is a long
work ahead (an eternal one, in fact). We went and visited an
investigator with the relief society pres which was super spiritual and
an amazing thing to do because now her whole family's goign to come to
church.
1/24
Six
months! Today was really cool. I realized we had been robbed, probably
by a kid because of what they took: Two MP3 players, 4 packages of
cards, two tie clips, two cans of Pringles, and 100 R$. So we spent a
good part of our morning talking to the owner of our house where he told
us how irresponsible the missionaries were and that two other sets of
keys exist to our house that have been lost, so that's comforting. Today
was definitely the most Manaus day I've had yet. as today we enjoyed
hiking through mud and forest, as well as handling animals, insects, and
soccer. The soccer match was awesome, I scored like, four times, that's
how you make contacts. We found some cool people today, one dude is
less active but married and now we're going to start teaching them, one
family is an older lady who goes to the universal church (which after
she mentioned she looked at me and asked, "you have a problem with
that?"), her son Nataniel, and her other son, Nataneil. We gave them the
restoration today with the invitation to pray and they're like, "wow.
That's really powerful. Yeah, we'll do that" which was awesome to hear!
Then one of our investigators maybe got kidnapped (we'll see tomorrow)
but the relief society assured us that she was not, in fact, kidnapped.
We'll see tomorrow. My district grew in size when it absorbed that
district leader of the other district in our zone, which means I am now
responsible for the interviews of almost everyone in the zone, as I'm
the only district leader. We'll see how that goes. We're also giving
talks Sunday.
1/25
Today
was rather annoying, we spent all day walking around and all of our
commitments fell through. Liljenquist and I spent our time this morning
madly rushing to put together the talks that we would give the next day
and we have a lot of hope for them, we prepared them well. We taught
some new people today which was cool, they were very concerned about the
Earth and how we're destroying it, they recounted how 15 years ago you
could drink the water collected on the ground without worries but now
it's impossible to do that, so I shared with them the section of
Revelations that talks about the third angel sounding his trump,
Wormwood, and all that, which seemed to hit them pretty hard. We talked
about the second coming of Christ and then finished it off by giving
them a contact card. Then they surprised us and asked about sacrament
meeting and when it is. It's a little bit of a walk for them, but if
they come, it would be awesome! The only other thing that worked out was
that we were able to take Cleide's husband to our quorum churrasco. I
was really grateful that worked out though, because that was the only
thing that we've done to relax all week, and it was a great opportunity
for Cleide's husband (his name is Auderval or something, but I'm
American and can't pronounce it), he got to know people from the quorum
and eat a bunch of amazing food, so win-win. The only thing was that it
took them forever to get started, an hour and 10 minutes of waiting
before they were like, "um, Missionaries, you guys can eat now because
you guys have to leave in 2 and 1/2 minutes to make it home on time", it
was still really fun though.
1/26
Today was cool.
Liljenquist and I made food today, he learned how to make pancakes and I
made an "award winning sauce", according to Liljenquist, for dinner,
which turned out pretty awesome. Liljenquist and I gave talks today. I
prepped 19 sources and when it was my turn to talk I saw that I had 19
minutes to speak, so if I just read really really fast and explained it
all in a language I'm not nearly fluent in, I would finish on time. I
got through about seven. The talks went really well though. I got to do
lots of studying today which was absolutely amazing and hyped me up for
missionary work before we went out and talked to this investigator who
destroyed my hopes and ambitions:
Us: What do you know about prophets?
Cara: We're all prophets, you're a prophet, I'm a prophet.
Us: That's not quite right, take Christ, for example, when he was on the Earth, he was the only prophet-
Cara: See, lots of people think Christ established a church. He didn't.
Us: Wait, what?! No, that's not-
Cara: Religion already existed, the only thing Christ did was save us all.
Us: Christ did give us the opportunity to be saved, but-
Cara: So I'm saved, I don't need to worry about church because I am my own church.
*internal screaming*
I have been thinking a lot about Peter 4:8
And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.
This
command to have fervent charity, actively displaying the pure love of
Christ that we have is the only way that we can ever hope to save our
lost brethren and sisters. How will you fervently show that love?
Elder Anderson
No comments:
Post a Comment