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This is what a typical day looks like
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Monday:Monday we had a lesson with a lady named Andrine. She had said her goal with meeting with us was to learn how she could draw closer to God. We decided to share
James 1 and 2 with her. We talked about how faith without works is dead and about the ways we show our faith. It was an AMAZING first lesson, and a great way to start the week. The next fun thing included a guy named Jay-Ar. He wanted to hear a message, but because he's in the Philippines, we wanted to refer him to missionaries over there. So I used a Facebbok group I'm in whose purpose is to find missionaries all over the world and shared the situation. Within seconds, I had a ton of missionaries helping me. Someone responded and said that was their old mission, then he tagged some other missionaries and said some stuff in Taglog, tagging the appropriate missionaries. All I could think of was the scene in Lord of the Rings where they light the beacons and you see a bunch of lights go on through the skies and Eragorn yells, "The beacons are lit! Gondor calls for aid."
We forgot to take the car in to get the oil changed, so we made plans to do it next week. Skip to Monday to see what went down with that cause it's interesting. We went to the Horta's to borrow something. There was no-one home, so we got to eat the cookies we made them which is a plus. We have plenty of work to get ready for General Conference. (This week had a lot of work under the scenes that I won't talk about.) We drove to the Zone Leaders' apartment so they could borrow the car. A sister in our ward gave us money last week to go out to dinner, and we went to a churrasco called Oliveiras. It was so good! We also had great member lessons with brother Wright and Sister Barros. A guy we were talking to asked if we could have a lesson at 9:30. We weren't excited about having one as we had been getting ready for bed, but decided that we needed to meet the schedule of the people whom we are teaching, not the other way around. And I'm glad we did. He started off by asking about
3 Nephi 11. He asked about baptism and how when Christ arrived He gave authority to the apostles. We shared the importance of authority to him and extended the invitation to be baptized, and he accepted. I'm very excited to get to know Francis more in the future and love seeing his relationship with God growing. He's already been baptized two times; first when he was 3, then when he was 18, he wanted to be baptized again because it didn't make sense that he had been baptized before he knew what right and wrong was, not to mention the fact that it wasn't by immersion. So when we explained the importance for authority, he was excited.
Wednesday:
I talked a little with Jay-Ar, and he had questions about why missionaries can't hold lessons after 10:30. I explained that it was to make sure we were getting enough sleep and talked about the importance of obedience. He responded "Ok, I'll go to bed now to be obedient." Haha. I told him that was a rule for missionaries and not a commandment, and it was all ok. That day we went to pick up our car from the Zone Leaders; while we were there; they gave us a slice of pie, some cookies, and some biscuits. All in all, a fair trade. We also went to do service at our food kitchen. As always, it was great. We have good relationships with all the people there, and it's nice being outside. Once people pick up their food bags, there's an area where they bring out trays of extra fruit they have.
Thursday:
Nothing much to say here. We had a weekly planning session where we coordinated our efforts and talked about how we would get ready for general conference. We had am amazing lesson with Augosto, and he said he couldn't wait to go to church with us.
Friday:
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I made good use of the steak from the members! |
We went to district counsel. While we were at the chapel, we got some meat from the fridge. A sister in the ward had accidentally ordered a ton in excess and gave it to the missionaries to share. Man, I didn't mind that at all haha! I made a nice thick steak cooked in mustard and garlic. While we were making the steak however, another member came by and gave us a pizza. No complaints here. We dropped off some cookies to our friend Carlos and went home just in time for a lesson with Pedro M. It was a great lesson, and we helped him download the book of Mormon app on his phones, and showed him how to listen to it. Plus we invited him to general conference, and he was really excited to see what it was all about.
Saturday:
So funny story from today: we went on a walk to get out of the house, and were waiting at this big intersection. Across the street, there was this old lady with a walker. She decided not to wait for the go sign for pedestrians. She just went for it. As you can imagine, cars had to slam on their breaks, the intersection got clogged up, people started yelling at each other, and slowly but surely, she crossed the street. Finally, the second she made it to the other side, the pedestrian light turned on. Patience isn't for everyone, haha. We have been talking about Augosto and how awesome he is. I went back to look at what our first messages were like. He was the first person I ever talked to on Facebook, so as you can imagine I was pretty new to missionary work. The conversation was as follows (translated)
"Hi, is everything good?"
"Everything is good"
"I'm good too, and how are you?"
"Very good also"
"Awesome, so I'm a missionary for the church of Jesus Christ of later day saints, and I'm sharing a message...."
Elder Bodily and I laughed about my lack of tact; he made the comment that I basically just said hi then slapped him in the face with a Book of Mormon. But it seems to be working, haha. We also had a lesson with Willian, but he canceled. We think he might be avoiding us. It's always sad when that happens; you build relationships with people then all the sudden they ghost you out of nowhere. It's definitely going to take getting used to. This week was a very busy week. We did everything we needed to do and worked hard, but we didn't have very much success finding people to teach. Other weeks maybe we do less work and find more people. Sometimes things aren't going to go exactly the way you would hope, circumstances change, and we live in a dynamic world. But as you press forward with faith and trust in God, He will bless you.
Sunday:
Big day, we finally got to go to church in person with Augosto, except for the fact that he never showed up. We were on the phone with him before, and he said he was waiting on a call from his boss before leaving. Turns out his boss called him and told him they were understaffed, and he had to come in. He was super apologetic, and we understood, but it was still disappointing. Especially because church was so awesome. One of the people who gave a talk was an old guy whose been a member here for a long time. He shared that it may be his last talk before he dies; he shared his life story and experience with the church. It was so powerful, and I'm so grateful I could be there to listen. At home, I attempted to make Brigadeiro which is a Brazilian dessert that is essentially chocolate balls. The only problem is that they never solidified, so instead I was left with brigadeiro soup. Oh well. We finished the day with a lesson with the Vandanburgs and talked about the upcoming conference with them. They shared that sometimes it could be hard to focus on listening to the talks with so many kids around, but they did their best. We were reading in Jacob, and I remembered that there was a scripture that talks about our intentions and actions being reflected in our work. I decided to read that on the next page. I thought it talked about how we are blessed for bringing forth good fruit, and I wanted to talk about how God just wants us to do our best. BUT, the one I was thinking of was about how if we bring forth evil fruit we are cursed. So essentially they said they were having a hard time focusing in conference, and I told them they would be dammed. Luckily Elder Bodily saved it, and I corrected my mistake, but still pretty funny.
Monday:
So, the car. We took it in to get the oil changed, thinking it would be about 30 minutes. The guy in the Firestone was rude, and we could tell why for some reason he didn't like us. We assume it's because we are missionaries. He asked when we need our car by, and we said however long they needed. He responded, "OK. Come back here at 7..." It was 11 in the morning. We didn't need our car; however, so we weren't too worried about it and asked another pair of elders to bring us home. Here's the kicker. At 6:30, we checked and found at their hours are from 8-5; this guy was just trying to get us to come back when they were closed to be a nuisance. I don't know why. We haven't done anything to him, but it's the way of the world, haha. Before my mission, I would have gotten real angry, and probably tried to get him in trouble. As it is right now, I'm trying to remember that I'm a representative of Christ. The people who tortured and killed him showed no mercy, no love, and no kindness. Yet He forgave them anyways. Who would I be, if I took my anger out over something as petty as needing to come a day later to pick up my car. If I go in there and get mad and talk to the manager, all I'm doing is affirming whatever he thinks he knows about me, but maybe if I act with civility and kindness, I can give him a different impression. Then maybe next time he won't act the same way.