Elders Anderson and Young were joined twice last week by Kawany, a member of the Church in the ward they are serving in who will be leaving to serve her own mission for the Church in Washington, D.C. later in the spring. They visited a really amazing beverage restaurant and got to help make their own smoothie!
3/10
Today was awesome, Elder Liljenquist got assigned to
work with Elder Young and I for today, so I learned what it's like to
be in a trio. We had a district reunion today which was a great
opportunity to meet the other Elders in my district. The assistants
didn't show up though, so it was just the five of us. We got to see the
area a little bit before the reunion today, and it is super nice, Young
was like, "yeah this used to be a Sister area" and LilJ and I were
like, "hmm, yep, I can definitely see that." Some stuff was almost as
nice as the States, which is crazy. Same for our house, it's a little
bit small, but easily one of the nicest houses I've ever lived in. Lunch
today was in a restaurant. It's been a while since I've been in a
restaurant. We got to have churrasco which involved grilled pineapple.
This area is ridiculously nicer than Santa Marta, but I feel bad about
that, because LilJ is going back there tomorrow. One other thing
that's super cool is that this area is big, and there hasn't been a lot
of hardworking missionaries here yet, so there's a lot of opportunity
here. Today we also had two girls tag along with us for a bit to teach
lessons, so I ended up leading an army of five down the street to
convert everyone in our area boundaries. One of the girls had a
mission call to Washington DC, and NONE OF THEM WERE SNAKES [girls that only like the missionaries because they are handsome]! I love
this area.
3/11
Today was an awesome day! I was
still on the rush of being in a new area so we spent most of the day
focused on trying to get to know the area. Young just barely left
training and also has almost no time in this area, so we're trying to
figure it all out together. The ZLs tonight wished me good luck on
opening the area, so that was a nice vote of confidence. We also all
had our hearts broken when the ZLs told us that our temple trip time
was changed to 1pm. The hearts of my district were broken because it
effectively destroyed their Pday, and our hearts were broken because we
needed that time to talk to our investigators. Today was also crazy
for contacts, most of what we did in Santa Marta was chasing people
down in a desperate attempt to talk to them quickly, but today we had
so many people put into our path, it was crazy. A sister even called
from Sao Paulo saying she had a reference for our area. The Sister
helps run the church media site under the Portuguese division and said
that someone had requested that we contact them because they had been
interested in what the church had been posting online. Social Media is
an effective way of getting the message out. We also talked to some
members today, recent converts, who felt like they were being
forgotten. They had been praying that people would be friendly with them
and want to talk to them, involve them in the ward. Well, it just so
happens that last night they were the family that we ran into, and
wanting to get to know the members, we asked if we could visit them.
I'll never forget the happiness on their faces that we saw when we
visited them.
3/12
Today was amazing! We went back
to the restaurant that we went to on my first day here which was
amazing. The lady who owns that place is a saint, that's the best food
I've had in a long time. Kawany, the girl who's going to serve in
Washington DC asked to tag along again which means she must have liked a
lot, because we had a lot of success in the short time we were with
her. After so many great moments in such a small amount of time we were
all pretty excited to keep working. UNFORTUNATELY those dreams were
dashed to pieces when Elder Young said, "hey! We're on the road Famosa!
That means we're right next to acai do profeta!" I was confused because
I didn't know that Russell M. Nelson [the President and Prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] makes acai, but apparently all of
Larangeiras has accepted another man as the prophet because he receives
revelation for acai. Only slightly blasphemous. Kawany got really
excited and exclaimed, "I want acai!" and she and Elder Young ran off
with me struggling to tag along (since I'm the responsible one of the
group, smh [shaking my head]) "so much for working..." I lamented, to which Elder Young
laughed and assured me the break would be worth it. Well, it was
definitely the best acai I had ever tried before. I love this area. I
also started studying Spanish today, there are a TON of Venezuelans in
this area and tomorrow I'm doing a baptismal interview in Spanish so
that should be interesting.
3/13
Well, today was
interesting. We got a call early today saying that we wouldn't be having
church anymore which for us was bad because of the requirement to have
investigators in church twice before baptism, so we were freaking out
for a while. Thankfully it got resolved by saying that we could meet in
the homes of members, but this does make life a little more difficult. I
also spent all day reading my little Spanish Book of Mormon which has
started going surprisingly well. I know the stories in English and
recognize most of the words because of Portuguese, and so far that's
been enough to try to learn this new language. We had a lesson today
where we talked about Baptism and the Gift of the Holy Ghost; A lot of
pastores here claim to have the gift of tongues, which turns out to
sound like Parseltongue, maybe they can speak to snakes, because that's
definitely not a human language. On the other hand, Elder Young and I
are foreigners who never took a Portuguese course in our lives, yet
somehow are able to teach these people in their language. I had another
funny conversation today with someone who was interested in what we as
missionaries do, he asked what our goal was and I told him "to become
like Christ" he scoffed and said that wasn't possible, but I assured him
it was, I told him we can receive "grace for grace" (D&C 93:20)
until we're perfected. The man thought for a second and said, "hmm...
good answer, that's almost doctrine."
3/14
Today
wasn't quite as fun as some of our usual days. We woke up and got ready
early today because we had an interview to do for Parque 10 early. We
ran out of the house only to find out a large tropical storm (idk [I don't know],
probably not) had hit Manaus because it was dumping rain. More
miraculous though, was the fact that it somehow dumped rain all day. My
umbrella has long since been destroyed so today was very wet for me.
Lunch we went into a member's house who had A/C so that was the moment
that I went from being wet to a human picole (popsicle). The trip to
Parque 10 this morning wasn't as fun because the intervistee wasn't
there and so the long walk in the rain was rather fruitless. Oh well.
Work was pretty great today, we got to teach Renata and Camille, two
mocas [girls] who are interested in our message. Renata always acts uninterested
but is somehow retaining more of our message than any other
investigator, while Camille is the sweetest 14 y/o you'll ever meet. We
were talking to Camille about gifts of the Spirit and asked her, "what
are things that you would want in your life?" and she replied, "well,
I'd like more peace in my life since my mom and dad separated. That made
my heart melt a bit, I was like, "Well Camille, do we have a message
for you." She really likes our visits.
3/15
This
Sunday was interesting. We had lunch with a great member today, she
talked for a long time about the Coronavirus which seems to be the only
topic as of late. All of our work for this whole week in trying to get
people to Sacrament was for nought because our Bishop decided we
wouldn't have any Sacrament meetings, members and investigators were
strictly to meet in their own houses for the Sacrament which, obviously,
doesn't work for investigators. Hopefully all that changes next Sunday
and Bishop let's us do sacrament together. Fortunately, we were still
able to bless the Sacrament ourselves which was a huge blessing. We
spent the rest of the day trying to take the Sacrament to those members
who didn't have a Priesthood holder in the home. It was a good Sunday,
but I'll still be glad when this whole "deadly pandemic" thing passes...
Today's message is about the reassurances I've had during the week:
1
Nephi 22:17 Wherefore, he will preserve the righteous by his power,
even if it so be that the fulness of his wrath must come, and the
righteous be preserved, even unto the destruction of their enemies by
fire. Wherefore, the righteous need not fear; for thus saith the
prophet, they shall be saved, even if it so be as by fire.
And
as to what "saith the prophet"; “These unique challenges will pass in
due time. I remain optimistic for the future. I know the great and
marvelous blessings that God has in store for those who love Him and
serve Him. I see evidence of His hand in this holy work in so many
ways.”
That's a promise from our prophet that these things will pass, and if we hearken to the Prophet's voice, we will be protected.
Muito Amor,
Elder Anderson
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