First off, thanks for all the birthday wishes. It's going to be a great one in Brazil on Friday!
This week has been another hot week in Brazil. I thought that this area didn't have hills, but the neighborhood that we are having the most success is at the edge of the city on a hill. So it is bitter sweet. To be honest, we haven't had a ton of success yet. This area has people with more of a closed heart, but we are finding a few. We have a list of 600 members, only 60 are active every week, and are trying to reactivate them. This is our big challenge. This week Elder Palomo was sick so we were taking it slow. He is all good now and we are ready to hit the road.
We had a worldwide missionary broadcast on Thursday that changed a lot. We now get to wake up at 7:00! Then we have an hour and a half to exercise and prepare for the day. Then we have 30 min of planning and an hour of personal study. At 10:00 proselyting starts. But here's the catch, we still have to do language study and companion study but we get to choose when during the day that we will do them. It gives us more flexibility. Then we return to the house by 10:00pm and then have to sleep by 11:00. It is really cool. They said it was to help us better meet the needs of the investigators and so that returning to life after the mission will be easier because you wont always have 2 hours in the morning to do all your studies.
Saturday we had a wedding at the church. We were invited because a lot of less active members would be going and we could meet them and take addresses to make visits. While we were there we were also the servers of the food, so that was kinda fun. It was a cool experience. We had also helped set up for a few hours, but had to leave to go teach.
That night the mission president passed in our house, so we had to do a cleaning of the apartment. We cleaned what we thought was good, but when he showed up he pointed out a lot of things that we can do to be better. It is hard because he wants it to be more organized, but we don't have space to put things so we have to be creative. He talked with us about the work here and gave a little pep speech. I really like President Lacerda.
That night the mission president passed in our house, so we had to do a cleaning of the apartment. We cleaned what we thought was good, but when he showed up he pointed out a lot of things that we can do to be better. It is hard because he wants it to be more organized, but we don't have space to put things so we have to be creative. He talked with us about the work here and gave a little pep speech. I really like President Lacerda.
I know i need to be better journaling, but I am just tired at nights and just want to sleep. I will definitely take photos of birthday stuff. Maybe a video, I am sure that I will be rusty playing the violin so we will see if it is good enough to send. Maybe you will get a ukulele video soon as well. I have officially started the Ukulele lessons with Elder Jared and sound like a child, but it is fun. More stuff to do on p-days.
Well that was pretty much my week. Elder Palomo is feeling better this week and we will be working until the last door. Wish us luck.
-Elder Smith
Questions we asked this week:
Do you know your address there in Resende? I see the church address is Ruan Marcilio Dias 183.
I have no idea about the address, but i live literally next door. If you are facing the church on google maps. Go to the left until you hit the first apartments. I live in block 3 floor 7, room 708.
What do you do for exercise time? Run? Weights?
I have no idea about the address, but i live literally next door. If you are facing the church on google maps. Go to the left until you hit the first apartments. I live in block 3 floor 7, room 708.
What do you do for exercise time? Run? Weights?
Right now i am doing exercise in the morning and at night. We don't have weights, but we do have a metal bar with two paint cans fill with concrete on the ends that i use. We don't run, but there have been talks about going to the park right outside our house and running and using the pull up bars there.
What changes came from the missionary broadcast? Thoughts?
It was the schedule change that you told me. They also changed the key indicators. We don't have to count contacts, lessons taught, or lessons with members. They just want to know new investigators, how many baptismal dates you marked, investigators at church, and baptisms.
Did you get your birthday package?
Not yet. i think i will get it the 14th when we have zone conference. Now that i am not living with the zone leaders it will take longer for things to get here. Yeah i thought the mission president would bring the mail with him too, but he didn't so oh well. He is really busy and i am sure he isn't checking the mail at the staff to see what things he can bring to the missionaries in that area. But he did buy ice cream for us which was good.
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