So this week was pretty good. Last
Monday after I wrote to you all I made a delicious apple pie in the shape of a
heart and made an N+E out of pie crust to put on top for Nilse and Edimilson
who are a couple we are teaching. We made a surprise for Edimilson.
Nilse wanted to get married and we came up with a plan to help her
propose to Edimilson. It involved the pie I made and Cupuacú ice cream.
It turned out really well and he said yes. I joked with her that she was a modern woman
because she took the initiative. I thought
that was funny. They will have plans to get married legally on the 10th
of February. We found a lot of people that have a lot of potential,
I have a special story, so yesterday
we had splits with two young men and I was with Gabriel. I was a bit frustrated because we had a lot of
investigators that didn't come to church and life on the mission is just
stressful in general (but rewarding to) and we had no one to visit so we went
to visit a friend of Gabriel who had been visited by other elders in the past.
We talked to him a bit, then I taught the Restoration and the friend
(Ian) accepted the invitation to pray and be baptized on the 9th of February. I was thinking, “Cool. This kid is understanding really well, and he
has a desire to learn.” So I was a bit
happier. Then Ian´s dad Amiraldo wanted to talk to us and get to know us.
Man, I was impressed. Amiraldo is
one of the smartest people I have met on my mission but at the same time he
´´fears God.´´ He is 42 and is a self-employed graphic artist. He is one
of those types of people that dropped out of high school but study a lot and
read a lot of books. Like Bill Gates -- really smart, but didn’t go about being
smart in system. He talked with us for a while and because we did not
have other people to visit I spent more time getting to know him and the
conversation was excellent. He had some
really interesting thoughts about Mary the mother of Jesus that were clearly
inspired. He grew up in the Catholic Church
but now he said to us that the Catholic Church is not for him because of
doctrinal inconsistencies. He told us about some of the problems he was
facing in his marriage (his wife is sick and that puts more weight on his
shoulders.) So by the end I taught the Restoration and invited him to
pray and then he told us that he had already read the pamphlet and wanted to go
to church and that he had really been waiting for us. Man, it was really
special. I felt really connected with
him like I had already known him. He reminds me a lot of Mom and Dad in
his reasoning (and he likes U2 and the Doors, Jimmy Hendrix). I felt really good and nothing felt forced
when I talked to him. The Spirit was
there to testify with me and we left feeling really great.
I believe there are people that I knew
before in the pre-existence and that are waiting for me to find them. This
man was truly prepared to meet me and hear my testimony of the restored Gospel.
I hope everything is
going well for you all! Don’t miss me too much.
Love,
Ben
January 28, 2013
So Mom, thanks for the letter.
The shoes fit but gave me blisters so I am working them in slowly. These
past few weeks have been a bit tough for you guys in terms of deaths, I hope
that everyone is coping.
Thanks for talking to my counselor
and researching about my options for school. I think that it is a great idea to
retake a few of those classes, especially because I don’t feel really secure
with the material that was taught. I would
love it if you could talk to Coach Weiss to see if it will be an option for me
to play with the team at BYU.
So this week was
pretty stressful. We didn’t have a good p-day last week so it started off
on the wrong foot. We did two different divisions with other areas in our
zone. I got to go to Outeiro and see a
few people that I taught there. We have been short on time and our investigators
started to get soft. We had a group that was pretty good; like the Doctrine and Covenants counsels: search for the rich and learned. Well, we found a lot these last weeks and had
a lot of progress with them until Sunday. No one we taught this week went
to church. That is tough. But this week will be different.
Amiraldo worked, or something like that, this Sunday but he has promised to visit and told me that
his intention was to learn more about the church and in the future maybe become
a member (he did not accept a baptismal date).
It’s not easy to teach smart people.
I also got sick on Friday, with what I don’t know. And Saturday and
Sunday I felt really weak with body aches and symptoms of a fever minus the
fever. That was really frustrating. I felt really tired these days but we worked
like normal because the work does not stop. I am feeling a bit better today. The body
aches stopped but I feel a pain in my stomach like its empty even though I have
eaten things last evening as well as this morning.
I am doing well other than that
stuff.
I will make an apple pie this
afternoon and I will eat it with E. Guedes and E. Stacy who are from the next
area over. They are both Americans and really crazy. E Guedes is a
citizen of Brazil as well. His parents
are Brazilian but he was born in Utah. Logan I think.
Love you all!!!!!! I will try to
write letters today. Oh and big news: I found out yesterday that I will come home on
the 23
of July because transfers fell
on that day. I am thinking about talking
to Pres Scisci about staying one more transfer but there are a lot of things to
consider like school, work, and my siblings falling ill from missing me so
much... etc... so we will see.
Love,
Ben
February 4, 2013
Dear family
So this week has been interesting, I
got better from the whole stomach problem. We had a zone council with all
of the zone leaders in the mission. That was nice I feel like I learned a lot. I am writing this letter super fast because we
are at the end of our p-day and we still need to take the bus to return to our
area. We found a really cool old man the other day, he is 80 years old
and his late wife was a member. Apparently he had a dream where his wife
told him that he needed to join the church and prepare for the next life the
next day he talked to a member that lives close by who took us to his house Sunday
night. He will be baptized next Saturday.
Our baptism fell through this last
week and that was really frustrating. Suane (our baptism) was really solid
until Saturday night when we got a text from her saying that she
would get baptized the next day. Later she sent a text saying that she
would go to the Catholic Church instead. That was super sad after all we
taught her she turned her back on it. Even after she got an answer to her
prayer. We will visit her again to try and resolve her doubts and maybe
stop teaching her.
We are still animated despite this
and we have other people to baptize.
I think that I will stick with the 23
of July as my return date.
I love you guys a lot!!!
Ben
February 11, 2013
Hey Fam,
So I wrote part of a letter to you guys and took a picture of it and attached it to this email. So I think it would be best to read the attached letter first because I will explain the rest of the letter now.
So I wrote part of a letter to you guys and took a picture of it and attached it to this email. So I think it would be best to read the attached letter first because I will explain the rest of the letter now.
Read the attached
letter:
Dear Family,
Yesterday I passed the 18 month mark on my mission. That is a long time, but I feel like it has
been time well spent. I’m looking
forward to the last 6 months. They
should be productive now that I have much more experience. I have really learned a lot in the time I have
been here, especially about helping others through the Gospel. When we teach the gospel we begin to understand
with much more clarity. That is one of
the reasons why the church does not have paid clergy – because everyone needs
to learn and teach to reach our full potential.
So the same old things have been happening around here. I gave a talk last Sunday about faith and
cairns in the fog. I thought it turned
out alright, even though I didn’t have any time to prepare. I told a story about Granite Peak and the fog
there. I also used the first verse of “Lead
Kindly Light.” I think that helped the
talk communicate the need for faith and illustrates well the fact that we won’t
always have a perfect knowledge of our path but that the light of our Savior
will never lead us astray. I also “played”
the piano in Sacrament meeting. Well, it
was more like “operating” the piano because it is electric and pre-programmed
with almost all the Portuguese hymns.
So last P-day was pretty tiring and difficult. We went to the mission office in Belém 1.15 [an hour and 15 minutes?] one way by bus to be interviewed by the
Assistants. It took a long time, mostly
because it took 3 hours to renew my visa, but now I’m legal again!!! We got
back to our house at about 5:15 and then Elder Leite realized that he had left
our keys in the mission office. Why he
left our keys in the mission office, I do not know. So, we visited a member close to our house
(where we had family night planned) and then returned to Belém. We had to stay the night at
the mission home (where the staff lives).
We didn’t get back to our house until 10:00 the next morning. I got to talk a lot with Elder Anderson, one
of the assistants to the President. That
was nice. He was trained by Elder R.
Silva (my trainer) and he is from Burley [Idaho]. So because of these things in common there
was a lot to talk about. He reminded me
of Mike and Hayden.
So while I was at the mission office, Elder Anderson showed me some
watches that a member was selling. The
member is a policeman and was selling the watches through a police auction (the
watch had been confiscated entering the country illegally). They were all TAG Heuer watches. In the store these watches are really
expensive.
Now I will
continue. So the watch I bought was a ´´Tag Heuer GRAND CARRERA Calibre 36´´ I bought
it for 200 dollars but it is sold on the tag Heuer web site for 9000 dollars so
I thought it was a good deal. I had to think a lot about it because it’s
one of those economic decisions that are a bit shady. but I figured that
if I didn’t want to use were a really expensive watch, or if I get really poor
and need money for college I can pawn it or sell it to a rich person and get at
least what I paid for it. Oh dad I had a question did you transfer money from my account? Because a few months ago I had more than 5000 real in my account that is equal to about 2500 dollars but I looked at the balance at the ATM today and I only had 750-ish real or a bit less than 400 dollars so I was wondering if that was right.
So this week has been a bit stressful in terms of work. I feel a lot of stress trying to be a good zone leader, helping my zone and working to have success in my own area. Thankfully things worked out alright in the end. We baptized an 11 year old boy named Claudio. He is pretty cool.
We have had problems getting people to commit to coming to church. A lot of the time they say they will go but then end up sleeping, make up excuses or say that they will spend time with extended family. That has been frustrating but it will work out we just need to keep working hard and maybe teach more about the importance of going to church.
I am doing great overall I’m working hard and trying to become a better missionary.
I’m also coming down with a cold but it’s not too bad.
I love you all a lot!!!!
Ben
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