The Elders at Henrique's baptism!
3/17
Well
today WAS great. We had a district but it was a super small reunion,
just the four of us. It was still a great, uplifting experience and
helped us all to bond more, so I'm glad we did it. Then everyone else
found out that I like to draw which somehow bonded our district more
than the interviews or anything else we've already done. Interesting.
After the reunion we had lunch with the sweetest family ever. The wife
is the ward's relief society Pres. and the husband disarms bombs.
Another classic example of a great husband/wife duo. They have the
sweetest daughter, Laura and a little baby boy that's super chubby. They
were such a good family, they gave me hope for the people of Manaus
again, since we mostly just talk to people who don't understand all day.
After lunch we had some interesting lessons, we taught Renata and
Camille together today which didn't go that well. Renata seemed like she
was trying to impress her friend with the "I'm too cool for
salvation" attitude, which I'm worried will corrupt Camille. Camille
was still pretty interested though, so I was glad things worked out for
her. There was a lesson that went far better though: We taught Henrique
today, turns out this kid is the golden child. We taught him and his
brother tonight and after the first lesson we taught, he invited us to
stay and teach another lesson to his brother. During the lesson
Henrique was like, "one thing you guys explained really well for me was
apostasy, but I don't think my brother understands. Do you understand
what apostasy means Gabriel? *Gabriel shakes his head no* Could you
guys explain it again for him?" So yeah, we're going to really focus on
Henrique this week. Today WAS great until they reduced our proselyting
hours tonight. Now I'm not freaking feliz [happy].
3/18
Today
was the first day of working our new, horrible hours for proselyting,
Presidente purposely chose hours when he knew there would be minimal
contact with people on the street, thereby drastically decreasing
the chance of us getting the Coronavirus; That's a good thing,
until you consider how missionary work is a social work and actually
completely dependent on talking to other people. Needless to say, work
today was very annoying. We spent a long time walking around but not
as much time actually talking to people. We did get Henrique's
baptismal interview done today, though. He passed with flying colors;
the interviewer said that Henrique taught him during the interview,
so I'd consider that pretty prepared. We also shared the lesson "The
Gospel of Jesus Christ" with a family today. During that lesson we
always pause when we get to the part that talks about baptism because
the part about authority is always difficult for people to understand.
Well, Kawany took over and started explaining. Then she told a dude
that his baptism wasn't valid. Kawany barely opened her mouth the
first time we taught, so to hear her explaining the hardest part of
the lesson with ease, as well as taking the courage to call someone to
repentance was great, it made her trainers (Young and I) very proud.
Young, Kawany and I are super excited about Henrique's baptism, our
first success in this area!
3/19
Today was awesome!
Despite the lack of work we were able to do today, we prepped Henrique
for his baptism, which left us feeling great. Another son of God will
enter a divine covenant by the authority of the Priesthood. We also
taught Henrique about the plan of happiness today. Lessons with
Henrique are always the best because he understands so much, it's
kind of weird to go from slowly explaining every concept one by one with all of our other investigators to flying through the whole lesson and
finding out that somehow Henrique's retained all of that information.
We also kind of have a dilemma about Henrique's baptism: We're not
supposed to have more than five people, but his family wants to see the
baptism which is really important for both building trust with them
and for missionary work because 100% if they're there they'll feel
the Spirit. The other fun thing we had to do today was to buy our
food storage. Caetano gave all the missionaries extra money to buy our
food storage. Caetano seems to be expecting that we're all going to be
stuck inside soon because of this horrible virus, so today we were told
to go stock up on food. We went to the Brazil version of Costco today
and spent a ridiculous amount of money on food (almost 500 reais which,
sure, is only $100 but food is cheaper in Brazil, so it was a LOT). I
was proud of our receipt, it looked like one of my mom's receipts
(shoutout to my mom for shopping for our small army) and now I can cook
food, so hopefully the apocalypse won't be too bad for us.
3/20
Today
was probably one of the best days on the mission so far. We didn't
really have time to do anything but Henrique's baptism, but it was
worth it. The first thing we did when we woke up was to go clean and
fill up the font. We messed around a bit, but where's the fun of
janitorial work if you don't? After a rushed lunch we ran back to shut
off the font. It was good that we hurried back to the chapel because
this is the first font I've used that has really worked; The font was almost overflowing when we arrived. Normally we have to wait
for ~1/2 hour for the font to finish filling up but this time we had
to use that half hour to wait for the water to drain back to a normal
level. Then we ran over and I did an interview for a Venezuelan lady
for Parque 10. parque 10 probably isn't very happy with me because I
didn't pass her, but she didn't meet the time requirement for church.
After the interview we ran back to our area as fast as we could (
we did actually run which probably scared a lot of people to see two
Americans trying to spread the Coronavirus as fast as their legs would
carry them) Henrique's baptism was amazing, the Spirit was stronger
there than any other baptism I'd ever been to. I even got to confirm
Henrique which was an incredible experience. Afterwards I also got to
be the mouthpiece in a blessing for Tiago. The ability we've had to
touch people this transfer, this week, has been greater than any other
time in my mission so far.
3/21
We're kind of
freaking out; Today amidst our attempts to work we heard from the
members that the missionaries of Mozambique went home. That kind of put a
damper on the whole "mission" thing. Young and I started freaking out:
"They can't just send home missionaries, what are they going to do?
Pull all the missionaries in the world?" It didn't help that we talked
to Kawany and she gave us more information on what was going on in the
missionary world; She told us that the CTMs are completely closed now
and they're considering doing online prep for missionaries. She has no
idea how she's going to prep for her mission now. Between making food
since we can't go to restaurants and a Trump questionnaire we had to do
listing out where we're serving at, we had a solid two hours to try
to work and prep people for Sunday even though we aren't having
reunions anymore. We were able to talk to Irma Solonge which was
good to establish contact with her. We found out that yesterday was
her birthday and she informed us that she had a "mountain of
cake" We found out just what kind of excess of cake she had when she
brought out the fourth cake in a row and demanded that we eat. Then
Young and I went home and felt bad for ourselves (because proselyting is
over, not because of the cake).
3/22
The
missionaries here are now officially on house arrest. We can't leave,
and we're all without hope. We aren't allowed to work with the members
at all. The mission is saying to make the largest reserve of food
possible so that we can stay in quarantine for an extended period of
time. Today the President of Brazil informed everyone that all public
places (restaurants, shopping centers, super markets) would be shut
down because of the spreading Coronavirus. Earlier this week there were
two cases confirmed, Thursday it went up to about four, now we're up to
26. I've been downloading a plethora of general conference talks,
and today I was very glad for them, since we're now locked inside. The
members have been very sweet, still trying to bring us food, and we
have a small food storage, so we'll be fine for a while. The most
devastating part of all of this is that we really aren't supposed to be
working during this time. We were told by our ZLs today that the ideal
numbers for us to pass next week would have 0s for everything; No
contacting, no meeting new people, no helping people get on date for
baptism, no preparing people for sacrament, and no baptisms. We were
able to take the sacrament today, so that was a positive. As a side
note, we just got a call that we're going home so that's errado.
This
week Elder Young and I listened to a talk from Elder Bednar. Because it
was so applicable to us, I decided to share some parts of it today:
"Each
mission call and assignment, or a later reassignment, is the result of
revelation through the Lord’s servants. A call to the work comes from
God through the President of the Church. An assignment to one of the
more than 400 missions presently operating around the world comes from
God through a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, acting with
the authorization of the Lord’s living prophet. The spiritual gifts of
prophecy and revelation attend all mission calls and assignments.
Bednar then shares a section from Doctrine and Covenants that talks about the specific assignment of one of God's missionaries:
D&C
80:3 "Wherefore, go ye and preach my gospel, whether to the north or to
the south, to the east or to the west, it mattereth not, for ye cannot
go amiss."
I do not believe that the phrase “it mattereth not”
as used by the Lord in this scripture suggests that He does not care
where His servants labor. In fact, He cares deeply. But because the work
of preaching the gospel is the Lord’s work, He inspires, guides, and
directs His authorized servants. As missionaries strive to be ever more
worthy and capable instruments in His hands and do their best to fulfill
faithfully their duties, then with His help they “cannot go
amiss”—wherever they serve. Perhaps one of the lessons the Savior is
teaching us in this revelation is that an assignment to labor in a
specific place is essential and important but secondary to a call to the
work.
When a missionary is reassigned to a different
field of labor, the process is precisely the same as for the initial
assignment. Members of the Quorum of the Twelve seek inspiration and
guidance in making all such reassignments."
Elder Bednar
spoke to the hearts of my comp and I, when we heard this talk we knew
the Lord was mindful of our fears about being transferred into another
mission. The Lord cares deeply for our personal interests and for His
work, and His work will continue.
Muito amor,
Élder Anderson