So just about everything fell through today. We were visiting some investigators with
member, but none of them were home so he took us to visit with all of his
friends in that area and we got a bunch of referrals from everyone. Out of all of the referrals, the most
interested two people was a young couple who are living together…..like really
really young (the guy is 19 and the girl is 15.)
Anyway, we went to a baptism tonight for a former member of
the church. One of our investigators was
there and she seemed to have a good experience.
I still haven’t met her because her schedule has prevented her from
making an appointment.
December 24, 2014
Talk about a hard day! The only thing that was good was the
lunch. We had turkey for our Christmas
Eve dinner. Lunch was in the condominium
complex where the were 40 children under the age of 12 baptized by one set of
elders. (all for the sake of playing the numbers game) That is so ridiculous
that NO ONE in the complex wants to talk to us.
Everyone, even the members, was too busy to talk to us. That is just the way it is in Brazil at
Christmas time. I am super excited for my Skype call home tomorrow!
December 25, 2014
We tried to get everything set up in advance for the call,
especially since last year my call was a
major fail. The owner of a Lan house
promised he would open for us to make our calls and then he didn’t show
up. So we ran around like crazy at the
last minute to find a member who would let us make the calls. Wow, talking with
the family is really kind of sad. You
wait for six months, or more, and then you only get 40 minutes. I have looked forward to this for so long and
then it just flies by and is over. Elder
Anderson and I played our guitars and sang, “We’ll be Home NEXT
Christmas.” My favorite part of the day
was getting to talk to my brother Levi in Chile. He got super emotional and I even started to
tear up with the things he was saying to me.
I am really proud of how well he is doing and how quickly he is learning
to be a missionary.
After our Skype calls, the zone had a barbeque (with special
permission from the president.) It was
pretty all right I guess. We ate a lot,
but is was a big waste of time. Elder Anderson made cinnamon rolls but no one
even bothered to thank him. The zone
seemed a little bit dead to me.
Funny story, back in the day of the randomly baptizing
missionaries, there was a young guy baptized who thinks that we are all Gods
and that we can just pray to ourselves.
My companion says that when he has taught him in the past, it is just
completely crazy. He really is so ill
that he cannot possibly make decisions for himself. Most of the time he is very drunk and never
comes to church, but we still try our best to help him.
December 26, 2014
So we talked to one of our investigators who is reading the
Book of Mormon and praying about it. He
is very receptive and has a lot of questions for us. One of his friends is a pastor and he trash
talks the church all the time. That is
very hard for us, but we never criticize other religions.
I finally met and investigator who has been taking the
lessons for a long time. She is keeping
the commandments but is afraid of committing to baptism. She has some good friendships with members of
the ward, so that helps us in our teaching.
December 27, 2014
We went on exchanges today and I wasn’t all that impressed
with how the work is going in their area.
The companionship is getting along better, but their planning needs
work. In the beginning of my mission,
the one good thing that I learned was that you have to “plan with your head,
and not your legs.” That day, they
definitely planned with their legs.
Everything fell through and we ended up walking from one side of the
area to the other and back again trying to talk to some of their old
contacts/investigators.
We also had our meeting with the ward mission leader. We have a really small ward of about 80-120
members in attendance. What I learned
was that we have over 500 members on the ward roster!!! So there are more than 350 inactive members. We actually have a very small area that our
ward covers. We can walk from one end of
the boundary to the other in 40 minutes.
Basically, all of the doors have been knocked. So, we will be focusing on reactivation and
hopefully we can have some success.
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