Another good work week made better with Burger King.

Fortaleza

26 January 2015

We made a trip into the city for interviews with the President.

         We are going to hold off on the baptism of the two boys for a little while longer.  These are two kids who have never been to church before their mom came back to activity a few weeks ago.  We talked to their dad (an inactive member) and he wanted to postpone the baptism because he didn’t think that the boys were ready.  At first I was a little disappointed until I started teaching them and then I was like, “Yeah, this will take longer than I thought.”  This is a good example of how important it is to listen to the parents.  We are going to plan on working with the dad also so that he can baptize his own sons.  He already said that he wanted to come back, now we just need to help give him the support he needs to do it.

27 January 2015

My breakfast = the end of mission diet plan to drop 10 before returning home.

       

 We had our interviews with President Bonini today.  We got there a little early so I treated my district to Burger King.  I miss American food….. like Dad’s ribs, burgers, French fries, pancaked, bacon, hashbrowns…The food here is good, but it really gets old.  Anyways, getting back to the point, our interviews normally take forever and go super late.  But, today President Bonini was on a roll ad our interviews were super quick.  Mine was cool.  I asked him to renew my temple recommend.  It was really different experience this time because with every question that was asked I would have a little missionary flashback of an experience that helped me to answer each question with an a surety. I definitely felt the spirit stronger and know that I am more dedicated and prepared to go to the temple than I was when I got my first recommend.  I also found a quote that I like that Presidente had in his office: “Whatever excuse for not reaching and objective, even if it is valid, weakens the character.” Spencer W. Kimball

28 January 2015

         Woohoooo!!! We have a date set for a baptism for the 21^st of February!  This is the young man we met in the alley and he is making incredible progress. The hard part will be waiting to see if he makes it to church this Sunday.

         I haven’t told you about this experience that I have been having with an old man who pushes a wheelbarrow around and always asks the missionaries to help him.  He is super old, barefoot, and you just feel sorry for the guy.  One day, I walked nearly ½ of a mile pushing a heavy wheelbarrow with sacks full of manure. Then, after I finished helping him out, he asks me for money…..

29 January 2015

         Today something super cool happened.  So, Elder D. and Elder A. gave us a referral and when we talked to them, it turned out to be a miracle  The dad of the house left his family a few days earlier after a nasty fight.  He only had returned last night. Then this morning he told his wife that he was sorry and that they needed to find a church that could help their family. Then we showed up with our message and they are very interested.  They have a large family including teenagers and they all listened to our message and will let us return to teach them again.

30 January 2015

         Nothing super interesting happened today.  Everything is going well with the families that we are trying to reactivate.  The dad of the two boys is really warming up to us and says he wants to join his wife and kids and come back to church.

31 January 2015

Elder F. likes ping pong alot!

         Where to start?  Haha, so while Elder F. and I were studying, someone called us.  It was Elder Curty (one of my former housemates from early in my mission).  He is from Rio and has been home for a while. I was super surprised and I almost didn’t even recognize his voice.  We caught up for a bit, but sadly I had to get to work so I couldn’t talk for long.  Anyways, he said that he needed to talk to me to explain something important on my p-day.  So now I am really looking forward to p-day!

         After that we had three new people show up for English class.  It was a really good class even though it is hard to think of ideas to keep people involved.  The book that Mom sent me is for a lot more advance students, but I still use a lot of the principles from it because they are really useful.  Anyways, the class members all said that they would come to church tomorrow. (We’ll see if they come!)

         We had a chance to visit the family of the mom who had foot surgery.  We haven’t talk with them in over a week and sometimes that is long enough for people to lose interest in the missionaries.  But, they still have the same desire to attend church as soon as her foot heals, and then she wants to be baptized.  She thinks that her foot will be well enough to walk in another week.

1 February 2015

         It is already FEBRUARY!!!  Man, time is flying by now.  We had five people come to church today which is great, but then again we were expecting 20 which is not so great.  We spent 20 minutes walking and knocking doors before church. One of our investigators and her boyfriend came to church and it turns out that she knows a lot of the members already.  She really really enjoyed church and it was a really good testimony meeting.

         Everything after church fell through.  Sundays are drinking days here in Brazil and today it was an exceptionally drunk day. I am looking forward to p-day tomorrow!

Ghetto washing machine that empties into our toilet and doesn't really clean out clothes.

Our lovely area has the canal. Yeah, it absolutely reeks.