Hey everyone,
Not going to lie I have a hard time remembering what actually happened during the week and need to start making a bullet list to bring with me for the emailing sessions. What I do know is that I am getting better at this whole Portuguese thing. I can talk to some members and investigators and can understand more. When I first got here I couldn’t even tell some words that people were saying because of huge accents. Now I can tell they are actually speaking words so I guess that is progress.
Tuesday Elder Olivera and Elder Cabral were here for splits with the other dupla (companionship) and that was fun. I like Elder Olivera, he is way chill and only has 1 month left of his mission. He thinks i will be an AP so we will have to see. All the Brazilians here tease me a little about returning in 2018 because they all have less than 6 months left but we are still teenagers so what do you expect. I learned a lot about other areas and what is the standard for this mission from those guys. Apparently I have it really good because the house is a little above normal, the food is cheap, and I don’t have to spend money to travel to many meetings.
Wednesday was filled with a lot of walking. We decided to go to a new neighborhood that was really far away because we weren't having much success and it was good. We gave almost 10 lessons that day alone and made a bunch of contacts. Walking home we got a little lost and somehow ended up further away from the house after 30 min of walking, but we were close to a member so we stopped there. We talked for a little bit and then Claudia gave us homemade bisquoitos, a mix between a cookie and a cracker, with guarana. There were literally over 300 of those cookie things and I was pounding them down and after eating what I thought was at least 50 it looked like we didn't even make a dent in that bowl.
Thursday was pretty normal but we had a church activity. There was a spiritual thought and a small game with food. At this even I met Fabricio who is an investigator of the other dupla and he was way chill. I spent the whole night talking with him.
Friday started out a little funny. All the houses have some sharp or electrified wire around the top of the houses to stop thieves or whatnot. I was a little curious about how sharp this wire was and so I touched it a few times and found out it wasn't that sharp. However after I did this my companion pointed out that there was a small little sign further down. This sign said "don't touch electrified", and then I saw that what I touched was actually a combination of the electrified and sharp wire. So I don't know if it was broken, I was lucky, or was protected, but yeah I didn't get electrocuted. That day we taught William who was really excited about everything we taught him. He accepted everything we taught and we even marked a baptismal date with him. He ended up not going to church so we will have to see what happened.
Friday we did a little service. We went to an elderly persons home with all the kids of the branch and had a little lunch and talked to everyone. Well I just ate food and attempted to talk to people, but elderly people tend to talk with an accent and in a quieter voice, so it wasn't very successful. After that we went to a Bairro Bon Pastor and had 5 appointments fall through. We ended up going to Rosiani´s, a member, and got 10 references. This week we will be contacting lots of them for sure. Then we had a baptism of a 14 year old and I talked to some new people. Generally I can talk with péople the first time, get to know them a little bit, and then after that is where the real struggle begins.
Saturday was more walking to that far neighborhod called Triangulo. It was succesful I thought. We taught a few lessons but didn't make that many contacts because we had to walk to other appointments fast. A pretty normal day I think.
Sunday was disappointing because we had 0 investigators in church after confirming the night before with 6 of them that they would be there. That morning we even went to their houses to go with them but everyone was gone or sleeping and wouldnt answer the door. After church we were at the chapel for 2 hours talking with members, the president of the branch and just waiting. Then off to lunch which was another 2 hours which is normal here because of the culture and not getting dinner. So we started working about 4:00 and had a family home evening at 7:00. So not that much work on sunday. We had one appointment far away again and so walked there and gave a lesson about the law of chastity. They are strange investigators, one is a less active but has been living with this guy for 10 years and wants to be baptized again because she didn't feel anything the first time. Then when we taught they started arguing between themselves and lots of stuff so there is a lot of work to do there. We had to run after that appointment to get to the family home evening somewhat on time. My trainer has a hole in his shoes and this huge rock got in there as we were going fast and he totally just fell to the ground mid stride. It was hilarious. Anyway the family home evening was good and provided our dinner as well so I was happy.
That is what happened this week. The weather is picking up and I am starting to melt, but it is going well. Until next week.
Elder Smith
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