Wet Feet

Constant Rain lately

March 2, 2015

         I think that it is super cool how in Portuguese the days of the week translate to literally mean “second day”, “third day”. Etc. And this week, it just so happens that the days correspond to the date, today was the “second day”, March 2. 

         Today was pretty dang chill. We had lunch at a member’s house which is a rare treat on p-day, and it was really nice.  This sister has a bunch of family that lives in Utah.  She is going to give me their names so that I can visit them when I go to school.  Her brother served his mission in South Africa and is now studying at the U of U. 

March 3, 2015

         Today I had to go to the office to grab material and it is really annoying because it takes up a huge chunk of time from my studies.  But, I was able to read a large chunk of “The Articles of Faith” by James E. Talmage on the bus.  I actually really like that book.  It explains the doctrines of the church in simple but eloquent language.  The trip to the office turned out great for me because I got a package from Mom.  It was the Valentine’s package with lots of treats and a new white shirt for me to wear home!  The sad part about that is that she told me it was my last package on the mission.  Man, I love those packages!

         We found a less active member of the church today when we were talking with A. She works at one of the depots here and she seems really intelligent and she told us that she has the desire to come back to church.  She doesn’t live in our area, so we passed her information on to the missionaries in her area.  Other than that, it was kind of a dud day.  We didn’t teach very much, and we didn’t even contact that many people. 

March 4, 2015

         Today we actually made the goal of doing 20 contacts!  Up until now, we have never been able to reach it.  We have come close, but today we did it with a little help from the other Elders.  We had this activity (the starch and faith example) and we made a huge mess.  Everyone loved it, but we asked the other Elders if they would stay and clean up for us because they had already gotten their 20 contacts.  So we were only missing 5 and we still had 20 minutes left in our day.  We managed to do it!  Because it was the very first time that both companionships reached that goal on the same day, I bought us all pizza!  It was a good day.

         There was a super funny thing that happened earlier this week that I forgot to write about.  During our email time, Taylor sent me a video of our cat pawing the sliding glass door to get in the house.  Just at that moment, Elder Dornales showed up at the internet café and pawed on the glass of the café door exactly like our cat.  Elder D. is so crazy about cats that he actually behaves like one. Elder D. offers a lot of comic relief in the mission.

March 5, 2015

         Today when we were preparing for the baptism of Marcos and Marcelo, I was reviewing their records and noticed that Marcelo is actually 8 years old.  He and his parents thought that he was 9.  How is it that parents don’t know the actual age of their child????  This is sad news for a missionary because the baptism does not count as a missionary baptism but as a ward baptism.  But still he will be baptized so it is no big deal.

         We managed 22 contacts today and it was easy.  You just have to take advantage of every opportunity you can have to talk to someone. Stopping someone on the street usually isn’t my thing, but sometimes you just have to push back your fears and do it. We got to know a bunch of people and we even found a few new investigators.  It is raining like crazy here now and it is annoying because ALL of my shoes have holes in them.  L But, it really is amazing how the Lord puts people in your path, but in order to find them, you have to go outside of your comfort zone.  It is definitely NOT comfortable walking around with wet feet.

So when it rains like crazy, there are these water spouts here that are like gutters. It was raining so hard that everyone basically just acted like they were at a water park!

March 6, 2015

         Exchanges with Elder Medrado!  It was actually really really good.  First of all, Eldr Carmo and I had a couple of appointments in the morning, so we were almost running to get there on time.  As we were hurrying on by, this guy just says, “Hey Elders!”  I felt the impression that we had to talk with him and as it turns out, he is a returned missionary and he has a co-worker who is super interested in the gospel.  He is going to introduce us to him.  Throughout the entire day, Elder Medrado and I talked to everyone we met.  We filled up next Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday with appointments. Elder Medrado gave me a couple of tips on how to improve and organize our house better.  He also taught me a couple of cool songs to play on the guitar which will keep me busy on the next p-day.  One of the annoying things right now is that this week Elder D. found the soundtrack on the phone for the “Primary Colors” acapella.  I don’t know if you remember that CD, but it brought back a lot of good childhood memories for me and made me a little homesick.  But that was quickly cured after listening to “The eensie, weensie, spider” for the tenth time.  Ugh, of all the sound tracts, that was Elder Ds favorite!  Not even Vocal Points soundtrack won out against “The eensie, weensie, spider”.

         We have a great investigator who has a very interesting difficulty.  She wants to remain a virgin forever.  She told us that she never wants to marry for many reasons. This leads then to her biggest hangup in the church and that is the principle of exaltation in the celestial kingdom.  She is very bright and has a really strong testimony, plus she keeps every commitment we give her, and she has been to church many times.  She says that she wants to be baptized but she feels like she has already lost exaltation because she never wants to marry. 

March 7, 2015

         Elder Medrado has even less time in the mission than I do and during exchanges we didn’t ever talk about home or other trunky things.  We were always talking about the mission and the things related to the mission…up until we were waiting for the other elders at our meeting point.  They were 40 minutes late so yeah, we talked a LOT about home during that time.  Haha, still we are both doing great in our work. 

         Today went really well.  We taught a lot, but unfortunately we did not do very many contacts.  We did contact this guy who asked us to teach him and he was SUPER interested.  We left him a pamphlet on the restoration and he asked us a ton of questions.  We had Jose Victor with us and he thought it was pretty awesome. 

This super cute little kid at the baptism!

Then we had the baptism and we had a ton of visitors and investigators there to watch.  M. and B. and a bunch of their family showed up to watch. The baptism turned out really nice. The boys were both baptized by their uncle.

March 8, 2015

Oh my gosh, I have never seen it rain so hard before in my life!  AND we still went looking for our investigators before church.  There was no way around getting soaked and sometimes we had to wade through puddles that went to our knees.  The canal was actually overflowing (with sewage).  None of our investigators we looked for came, but M. came again all by herself in the rain. 

One of our recent converts walks with a picture of the missionary who baptized him in his triple combination. It's pretty funny.