Rejuvenated!

April 27, 2015

         Okay, so I started this P-day completely and totally DEAD.  I am tired of working by myself, and I was about ready to give up, but I got an email from my one of my former converts.  It has been forever since I have talked to him, but he sent me an update and he is now working an office job where he will get his smile reconstructed for free.  He is helping to do missionary work in his ward and he is happily married to a member of the church who he is planning to take to the temple this summer.  He thanked me for helping him to transform his life.  When I knew him, he had just gotten out of rehab, and had no clue what direction to go.  It brings me so much joy whenever I think about him and he reminded me of why I am a missionary.  Also, my mom got me some brand new shoes from Mr. Mac because of the warrantee!!!  I never thought that new shoes would make me so happy.   And then a final wonderful thing happened today when Elder Shelton pointed out to me that we only have 6 more p-days left!  Where has the time gone?  Anyways, I am super stoked today and ready to start a new week.  Elder D. Todd Christofferson is coming to speak to our mission tomorrow!  I have had the opportunity to listen to 2 apostles during my time here in Brazil…3 if you count the MTC. 
        Elder Costa's wife talked in this conference that we had this week, and she said that we should have a goal to send home a 'new truth' that we learn every week to our family. These are new things that we have found out about the principles of the gospel. I don't have my notebook with me right now, but this past week I was studying about the Holy Ghost, ad there was a verse in D&C that gave me a cool insight on it. The part that I liked was how it said that the Holy Ghost will teach us the peaceful things about the kingdom of God. Everyone here thinks that it's the Holy Ghost who commands everything on the earth (people outside of the church) but this scripture reveals that he teaches the peaceful things. It is very rare when He will give a command like he did with Nephi. Rather, he whispers to us. Who gives commands are the prophets, apostles, 70's, etc. Our leaders receive revelation and have the authority to be able to guide us. 

April 28, 2015

         We had to wake up SUPER early to get to the conference because our zone leaders wanted to get good seats.  It worked….but it meant that we had to wait an hour and a half for the conference to start.  At least I had some time to catch up with some old companions.  All of my past companions where there, except Elder Gino, and Elder Dayton (from the Independence Missouri Days).  It was a big reunion for me! I took a ton of pictures.  I would write more about the conference but I wrote it in my spiritual notebook.  It was a super great experience for me.  The spirit was very strong and at the same time Elder Christoffersen was joking around a lot which made it fun for us.  A good part of the meeting was Q&A.  I wrote a lot down in my other notebook, but one thing that I would like to share here was when Elder Carvalho asked, “There are a lot of missionaries that we know who fall away after their mission.  How can we help these people, and how can we make sure that it doesn’t happen to us?”  Elder Christoffersen was quiet for a long time, and then he said, “You know, I don’t understand why or how someone who serves a mission can fall away.  They gave two years of their lives and didn’t let the gospel into their hearts.  I don’t understand how someone can teach the gospel without believing in it.”  Then he said, “ We have to always remember the importance of practicing the gospel on a daily basis.  All of the habits we have know should continue after the mission as well.”  That is a personal goal that I am going to set for myself.

         As far as working after the conference, it was super hard.  All of our appointments fell through.  I did a bunch of contacts, but it was the same thing as before; just me doing the contacting.  There is nothing more that I can do to fix this situation.  I will just keep doing what I know that I should be doing.

April 29, 2015

         We had divisions today and it was super good!  I stayed with Elder Gomez and I decided that if I could give a title to the division it would be called, “Getting lost with a crazy Chilean!”  Seriously, he had no idea how to get around his own area.  On the plus side, we BOTh did a tone of contacting and it was so nice to work WITH another missionary who is excited to do the work.  He is actually a little too excited if you ask me.  He is one of those missionaries who is focused on just one thing: BAPTIZE!  Our mission president had been teaching us that the standards have changed and that we must now teach ALL of the lessons before baptism.  Unfortunately the “batizadores” don’t give a crap about what President says.  They just prepare people for the baptismal interview, they are not obedient, and they still baptize a TON!  That doesn’t make sense to me.  Even Elder Shelton said that he baptized more when he was being disobedient than he does now when he is actually trying. 

April 30, 2015

         I don’t know what kind of black magic Elder R. Oliveira used on my comps, but today was completely different!  They both actually helped out with contacts and it felt great! Elder R. Oliveira said that my comps are completely dependent on me and that I should try and let them work by themselves more.  Today I didn’t even need to get after them!  We taught this super good couple, F. and D. and they have committed to baptism on May 16. 

May 1, 2015

         IT IS ALREADY MAY!  We went to a service project today…did you catch that?  AN ACTUAL SERVICE PROJECT!!!  It was awesome to actually serve people again.  I had to really sell the idea to have president let us go there for one hour.  He does not like service projects at all. We took the roof tiles off of a house so that they can build a second story.  I am not going to lie, I am getting a little tires of the minecraft houses here, but this family really needs the space. 

         Today was kindof annoying because everything fell through. We managed 18 contacts today and we taught S. He has a baptismal date for next week.  I don’t know if I am going to be transferred or not, but I would really like to be able to baptize S.  We taught him a lot of the lessons today and it all worked out super well UNTIL one of the other young men (who is preparing to go to the temple next week with his mother) asked us about baptisms for the dead.  We had already taught The Gospel of Jesus Christ, The Word of Wisdom, Sabbath Day, and the Sacrament, and NOW we had to teach the doctrine of Baptisms for the Dead.  Thankfully, the lesson went really well.  We started with John 3:5, then 1 Peter 3:18-20, and then we finished with 1Corinthians 15:28.  The Spirit was present in the lesson and our investigator accepted our message.

May 2, 2015

         We had lunch with our ward mission leader today and it was really funny.  He had one of his friend from and other ward come over and it was hilarious. They are both returned missionaries who married the girls who waited for them. It was fun to listen to them talk about their missions and life after their missions.