March
19, 2015
So we are teaching this 18 year old mom and
she has committed to be baptized on April 18th if she is ready by
then. We also taught a bunch of other
people today and all the lessons went well, but I just feel spiritually
drained. I am going to have to figure
something out or I am not going to make it to the end of my mission. Lunch today was frustrating because Elder D.
almost make a members kid cry because he pretended to pluck out her eyes with a
knife. Who does that?
March
20, 2015
Soooo good news and bad news. The good news is that the other elders are
going to have a baptism tomorrow! The bad news is that the pump to drain the
font isn’t working and the water was super old so we couldn’t use it for the
baptism. It was green, smelly, and full of bugs! So, we ended up taking all of the water out
by hand. It was actually a lot easier
than it sounds. 
I was on divisions with Elder D. and
the definite highlight of the day was E.’s interview. We were talking to him before and after his
interview and we were able to actually have a meaningful conversation with him
about the gospel. It was cool! He is so knowledgeable and ready for more. He already knows about the first and second
resurrection just from understanding the book of Isaiah.
March
21, 2015
The baptism went great! That really was
the only thing that went the way it was planned today. During the baptism, the bishop wanted to talk
(he like to talk). Whatever he starts,
he usually goes off on never ending tangents telling life stories and sadly a
little apostasy. I was sitting in the
back and our ward mission leader and I made a bet on how long he would
talk. I said 15, and Herbert said 20. Bishop ended up talking only 8 minutes and 50
seconds so that went a LOT better than expected.
We taught A. today and her Dad forbade her to go to
church. We will have to talk to him more
about that tomorrow.
March
22, 2015
Shoot!! Everything fell off the deep
end this Sunday. No one came to church,
and one of our best young couples needs to work out the paperwork on a divorce
before they can get married/baptized. It
is the end of a transfer, and the end of another hard week. I am not sure how I feel about this next
transfer.
March
23, 2015
Okay, I have no clue what President is
thinking. We are staying here, Elder
Anderson and Elder Dornales are leaving and their sector is being absorbed into
ours. We are getting another elder,
Elder Shelton, as a TRIO. I am not sure
how I feel about that. Well one thing
that I know is that I won’t like working in a trio, no one ever does. On the bright side, I got to play a lot of
basketball. We were playing games where the teams switch up with every game and
my team won every single game! Yeah, it
was the best part of the day. Also, I sort-of
got demoted when my district was absorbed into another district.
March
24, 2015
Well this is going to be
complicated. We do NOT work well in a
trio. It is super hard to teach. I am going to have to figure something out
quickly. My new comp makes a lot of
random cracks that aren’t all that appropriate in English (I am the only one
who understands him.) I bite my tongue a
lot of times, but sometimes my tongue reacts faster than my mind can process. The only way to counteract this problem is by
talking about our investigators which in all honesty is what we should be doing
anyway.
March
25, 2015
District meeting was a huge let down
today. It was very robotic and exactly
out of the PMG book with a lot of ums and ahs and awkward pauses. All of the other elders, except for one, have more than one year in the field so it
was hard for us. The only thing that I
learned form the training was actually from the newbie. He asked a really good question and that was
what I remembered for the rest of the practice.
Good questions will make you think and remember.
We taught A. again today and her dad
gave his permission for her to go to church.
We also taught C. and she seems really interested. We left 3 Nephi 11 with her to read and she
wrote her own summary about it so that she could remember what she read. It was perfect! She is preparing herself for
baptism on April 18th.
We have been seeing a lot of members
from Elder Shelton’s old areas. (Like one person every single day) Today we saw
this guy and he served a mission and helped our current zone leader come back
to church and go on a mission.
March
26, 2015
Well, we taught I. today and he is a
really nice person but super not interested.
He is one of our basketball friends, but he is very evangelical and
doesn’t want to listen to anything we have to say. We did teach a bunch of
other people today but a good portion of our appointments fell through. Elder S. has a hard time about talking about
home. He was in the MTC when I was, so
we have the same amount of time left. It is not a very good idea to put two
missionaries who are about to end their missions together. Fortunately he says these things in English –
it would be very destructive if people understood what he was saying.
March
27, 2015
Today was really hard. All of our appointments fell through and my
stomach has been killing me for the past couple of days. Today was hard. I was walking slowly, and it was HARD to do
contacts. We taught very little. However, we had a super cool lesson with F.
and E. They are investigators from the
other elders. I have already taught them
on divisions 2 months ago. He was in a
bad motorcycle accident. He broke his pelvis and a bunch of other stuff. Needless to say, he was bedridden. The other
elders found them and started to teach them.
It took us almost a week after the transfers to get back together with
them. Anyways, when we met with them today, F. was standing up!! He told us an amazing thing had happened to
him. The last night that the missionaries
where there, they prayed that God would do what the doctors could not and then
afterwards, F. prayed with a lot of faith that he could be healed. That night, he had a dream that he was being
operated on and the next day he had his doctors appointment. The doctor took Xrays and was shocked at what
he saw on the Xrays. He asked F. if he
could stand up and then he did! His
pelvis had completely healed overnight.
He is still very weak, but he is getting physical therapy to receive his
strength back. This is a miracle! 
I
have been asked about my preference for my final airport destination which
means that they are getting ready to book my tickets home. I understand why dad cannot come to Brazil (or
anywhere in South America) this year because it requires vaccinations and he
can't be vaccinated until next year. There's no way that he would survive here
with a weak immune system because... well... I'm not sure if Rio was any
cleaner than Fortaleza, but there's literally trash in the streets. Every
street has lots of dog poop/animal poop, and human waste flowing through the
open sewers. My area is completely situated exactly around these canals.
Luckily they're a lot cleaner now after the torrent that we had a couple of
weeks ago. Think about it. It's like a 15 foot wide 10 foot deep chute of water
moving at high speed. It cleaned out just about everything. It was super nasty
before though.
I am
working on keeping my mind focused on finishing strong. I told Taylor, I'm the
only one doing contacts right now. Out of three old, experienced missionaries!
My new comp is kind of revolted against president for putting him here and he
always complains about feeling like the third wheel. We've had a couple of
discussions, and I don't know if you have ever read the talk about the fourth
missionary, but he is very much a type 2 or 3 missionary. He's just biting the
bullet for now instead of loving the work. When I told him that, he got a
little mad and told me 'you don't know what I've worked like, you don't know
what I've done in my areas, you don't know how I am as a missionary!' I thought
and thought for a while (one of the cool things that I have learned on my
mission is how to think before I talk!!! :D ) and I told him, 'sorry, you're
right. I don't know what it's been like for you. I'm sure that you know how to
work, so why aren't you doing it here?' Him: 'because I hate it here. I
didn't ask to get transferred.' After a lot more thought I said 'well, you've
worked really hard, but if we do really well in life, and then screw up at the
end, what's going to come of us? We have to endure to the end. We always have
to give it our best, or the Lord won't be with us.' Then we both we quiet for a
while, and then he said, 'I'm sorry, I just don't feel useful. I don't know
what I'm doing here, I don't know the area, I don't know the people, I'm super
close to my old area, I don't know. I'll try to do better.' Ever since that
moment, it has gotten a lot better.
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