Monday, October 16, 2017

Spring the clocks forward...10.16.2017

Hi everyone, 

     This week was decent. It was full of ups and downs. Lots of appointments fell through. This week the weather is starting to heat up. At the beginning of the week it was way hot and the end felt like someone was breathing in your face. Gotta love the Brazil Summer, but we've been eating a lot of acai to cool down. 

      As for the work, this weeks saving grace was Diego and his mom Adriana. Diego loves the Book of Mormon and keeps asking us to mark new chapters for him to read. His mom likes our messages as well and his stepdad showed some interest. We haven´t talked with him directly yet, but we will. This week we met Ruan. He was sitting on the ground and I said "Good Afternoon" and he responded "Good Afternoon Elders." I wasn't going to stop, but when he said Elders I walked back and talked with him. He said that after the tragedy in 2011 in Nove Friburgo the church and missionaries helped him a lot. (**You can see some of the news here:  http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/01/12/torrential-rain-floods-rio-leave-dead.html) However, the missionaries were transferred and he lost their number. We wrote down his address and we will go there this week. 

     Sunday meetings were good and even had a surprise visitor called Phillip. He lost everything and is wanting to start a new life and is looking for a church. He arrived here and stayed the whole 3 hours. In sacrament meeting there was a good talk about prayer and another about faith. The talk about faith was given by Tiago, a young man that will serve a mission in Chile and leaves the 15th of December, and he made lots of reflecting questions to evaluate our faith. Do we have enough faith? What do we do to show our faith? How can we get more faith? It was well done. And in the talk about faith, Perola said that sometimes we have to pray to have more desire to pray. It was a great sacrament meeting. 

This week will have zone conference and just 2 more weeks until the end of this transfer.  If my package with the camera has arrived her in Brazil I should get it.

Does your mission president speak English very well?

The mission president is learning English right now, but he already speaks decently.

Did your last package from us have $1 bills in it when you got it?

yes it had the $1 bills. i already gave 2 away and still have 3. 

Who have been the most influential people you've encountered in the mission and why?

Elder Jared helped me a lot with being more actively engaged in the work and not being dragged into somethings. 

Elder Palomo taught me a lot about service. 

Daniel (Ward Mission Leader Nove Friburgo) is helping me see new ways to help investigators and work with members, Pres. Maicon helped me realize that 2 years is a short time to be a missionary.

Elder Ramos showed me how a sincere message changes lives. The list could go on but these are some that I remembered right now.

Did you put the clocks ahead Saturday night?  We are now 4 hours apart.  In November we fall back and will be 5 hours apart, so later email time for you would be better for me, but I'll be here whenever you are!!

Yes, we changed our clocks here. However, quite a few members forgot and showed up late or didn't show up at all. There wasn't the usual number of people there at church this week. 

Today we went to the center of the city and tried a Mate Suica and ate what they call the best acai in the city. It was good, but things were a bit overpriced to be honest. It was cool though. Now I will take a nap because I am dead tired and I will prepare for the zone conference. I was designated to give a training there so I have to prepare.

Until next week,
-Elder Smith

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