Monday, August 28, 2017

Great week and no, I'm not dead or missing...08.28.2017


Hey everyone,

     This week has had a lot of stuff happen. Lets start it off with a funny story. This week we had a division with the zone leaders in Teresopolis, another city, so we left Tuesday night and would get back Thursday morning. Well the other missionaries in our house forgot and woke up at 1 am and we weren't there so they started calling everyone looking for us. Our phone was off and so we didn't see any of this. He called the stake president who called the mission president and they called all the hospitals in the area looking for us. The mission president almost called the Brazil presidency saying that we might be dead, that we were missing. Luckily, they thought to call the zone leaders who settled the whole problem. But yeah when we got back everyone started teasing us that we were lost. People were legitimately worried. On this division as well Elder Cruz and I were sick. My throat was so inflamed that I couldn't even eat so I drank 1 liter of yogurt for lunch and went to work. By the end fo the day I was able to eat a little bit and i just felt a little weak during the day. Elder Cruz almost passed out as well...good times. 

    There are spiritual things happening as well. This week we were going to Maria´s house, our recent convert, but we felt the need to stop at an apartment building and ring some of the intercoms. Well one of the intercoms had a man called Evanildo. He said that we could enter and talk with him and then said that less than 1 hour ago he had prayed in the car asking God to send someone to help him spiritually. He said that we were the answer to his prayer and started to tell us about his life and we talked about the plan of salvation because he wanted to know God's plan for him. He used to be into some dark stuff (macumba) which is letting spirits into your body and they use totems and baby doll heads and stuff like that. It is really dark. But he left that and right now is evangelico but still doesn't know much about the Bible or Christ and we will be going back there this Friday.

     Saturday we were at the ward Father´s day commemeration party and a member showed up and asked if we could help someone move. Obviously we said yes and went there, white shirt and tie, to help. It was a really poor area and the husband was abusive so the women left and while we were helping he just kept yelling insults from the couch but all went well. We got some references as well because people wanted to know more about us because we were helping in white shirts and that isn't normal. We got to the activity at the end and got to eat so that went well as well. 

     Then Sunday I was called to give a talk. Actually Elder Cruz and I were both asked to give talks. I literally prepared for 10 min and then went and talked and I didn't have to look at my notes or anything. This time i didn't even shake. I gave a talk about what does it really mean to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. And then Elder Cruz talked about rescuing less-actives and friends. Everyone came up to us and said that it was a really spiritual sacrament meeting and that the talks were great. I thought as well that it went really well. 

Until next week!

Elder Smith


Questions:

1.  The best thing about my companion is... That he has a huge desire to work and is pretty chill.

2.  On my mission this week I learned....  That if you prepare a talk before you speak when you speak you will have the words given to you. I didn't look down at my notes once during the talk. That was cool.

3.  This week I have been wondering....  How to make the members more animated to call friends and support more actively the church.

4.  Did you get packages?  Audrey's?  Mine?  The one I sent got there in 10 days, so it should be there for you as well. 
There hasn't been an opportunity to get anything from the mission home yet, but maybe this Sunday when Pres. Lacerda comes for the stake conference. If not I will get its Sptember 12 at the zone conference. 

5.  How do they do stake conference there?  What are you violin part are you playing with the choir?
I will be playing "I believe in Christ" and I forgot the other one. I know it is number 172 in the Portuguese hymnbook. This stake conference will have two parts. Part one we will watch via transmission and the second will be vice-versa because the highway in between the two cities is really dangerous and they don't want mass travel there so it will be a broadcast.

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