Bianca was baptized!

Hey guys, this week has been great. We had a zone conference at the temple, and all of us got to pass through!!! It was such a cool experience, and only the second time I've visited the temple in my mission. I was the last one to leave, so the assistants were mad at me for being late to lunch, but it was worth it ha-ha. The Zone Leaders had me participate in the training. That doesn't make sense, because the District Leaders aren't supposed to usually, but I did as I was told. They told me to help plan and sent me the verse it was about. So I quickly read D&C 4:2 for 30 seconds then came in and outlined my thoughts for a training, and they said sure. That was basically all the planning ha-ha. Then we just assigned everyone to talk. The basic idea was talking about the connection between sin and guilt. In D&C 4:2 it uses the phrase “held without guilt”. Guilt is something that comes about when we know there was something we were supposed to do, and we don't do it. So, then we went in and talked about a bunch of examples of how the prophets expressed anxiety, stress or sadness when people made the wrong choice, but how that inspired the prophets to be more diligent in their missionary work. I gave examples of how we could do the same by inviting people and following up more because we are anxious about whether or not they're keeping commitments. It was good training. Elder Medeiros talked for a really long time, so I only had like 2 minutes and had to rush through. But it was all ok. 

Another big thing is that we had Bianca's baptism this week! It was really cool, though the day of I have to admit I forgot so much: to fill the font, set up the chairs, update the program, bring a towel and more... But in the end it turned out all right. This week was really busy just because we were getting to know Bianca and helping her get to know the ward. Plus, our friend Julia also accepted a baptismal invitation for next week. We had to remark (reschedule), because she takes care of her sick mom who had to go to the hospital, so she couldn't go to church. We did have a super spiritual lesson with her and a return missionary named Paulo. He's a good friend of mine and had some really helpful tips afterwards. 

 

We had a lesson with Mila this week! We met with her while doing an exchange with a 16-year-old named Ruan in our area. He's a really dope kid who asks the most genuine questions I've ever seen in my life. But he's also very hyper... ha-ha. We got to her house and were going to walk to a park. It was packed, so we walked to another park, and only sat down for the lesson after well over an hour. Then it was IMPOSSIBLE to start because every time I said "So Mila," Ruan jumped in and asked something like,

 "If you're companion was drowning, would you jump in to save him?"

"We can't go to the beach; it’s against the rules"

"Let’s say a member took you."

"Elder Serdoski can't swim, why would he go into the water?"

"I don't know but just imagine..."

and so on. Imagine, trying to teach a lesson where about every 36-7 seconds he asks, "What happens if you put a fork in the microwave?" "Can you beat me in an arm wrestling match?" "Have you seen Star Wars? I haven't but I just was curious if you have?" 

Elder Serdoski was struggling to be engaged. When I asked him if he wants to explain about something he laughed and said no. That is what anxiety sounds like ha-ha. Eventually, I made everyone get up. We just walked around the park and Mila, and I chatted about all the stuff she read and all her problems. Then Ruan asked her to race him to see who has faster and so forth. When we got home Elder Serdoski complained to anyone who would listen about how I made him walk so much today all around the park for no reason. This is just a taste of mission life folks. 

 

Buuut on the way home, we were stopped by a guy named Vitor to take a picture of him and his motorcycle. He then immediately asked where our church was and gave us his number. Even crazier, he then went to both hours of church; asked what baptism for the dead were. He explained that his dad was never baptized, and he wanted to go for his dad, but there were so many baptisms and so many churches, he had no idea which baptism was authorized of God... Ya, I know... We are just as excited as you!!!

 

And that’s all folks. We had district P-Day today which was a blast. We went to the Martin’s, ate churrasco, played magic the gathering, card games, a little fute mesa until their son kicked the table and split open his foot. It was dope. This kid is the next Steven Erwing. It’s crazy how much he knows about animals. Literally any animal. I always ask people who would win in a fight, a Tiger or a Lion. People are always wrong and say tiger. I asked him and he explains in extreme detail why a male lion would win. I casually said what about female. And he says well let’s just talk about the facts. Then he said them... All the facts. He talked about tooth size, claw size, claw curve, average weight, height, length, muscle ratio, daily diet, maximum eating capacity, maximum sprint, mating habits, raising habits, the differences in the psychology of the animals, the difference in their hunting habits, and much much more. Long story short, it was the lioness, by a very, very large margin. Oh and this kid is 13, by the way, and can do this with basically any animal. 

 

Milagrão!

Hello to all my subscribers, 

How are you? I'm great, this was a great week. I've stopped taking notes on what happens which makes it really hard to remember at the end of the week. It was an interesting one for our area. 6 of our investigators are moving, which is too bad, especially in the case of Isabelle, because she really wants to get baptized. But as it happens, we got to go over to their house Friday morning to help them move. I woke up at 5:30, and we got there at about 8:00. Then there was nothing to do yet, so we ate breakfast with them and helped wrap plates for an hour and waited to be told what to do. In the middle of plate wrapping, I burst out laughing, and her 11-year-old daughter thought I was crazy. I just thought about how it’s someone’s profession to write all these newspapers, and somebody else’s to collect the data, and someone else’s to make the graphs, and someone else’s to make the title. All this work just for one newspaper. And all people use them for is to light fires and wrap glass plates. It just cracked me up. 

We only found a couple new friends this week and all outside of our area, but one was Bartholomew. (Definitely didn't spell that right.) He is a 17-year-old who's really shy. We taught him about the Plan of Salvation, and it really captivated him. The good news is that he lives in the Zone Leaders’ area, so I can still keep an eye on him! We even got two references this week. Mikaelly, who had a baptismal date then moved to our area. She is really busy but really nice. We talked a lot, and I'm really excited to get to know her. The office elders also passed the contact of someone who has a date for this Sunday! So, in 7 days we have to introduce her to the bishop and make sure she knows the ward; that'll be exciting!

And the big miracle of the week. I was in the car with a member on Sunday. We had gone to church in the Costa and Silva wards. He asked us about, "That girl who went to church a couple times way back." Mila... I told him about how she was really cool, but blocked us and expressed that she wanted nothing to do with us out of nowhere, because of stuff she read online. Then a couple minutes later, Claudia sent us a message. She's the member we invited to the lessons with Mila. She said that Mila and her had been talking, and Mila asked when church was coming back. She then went to church and said she felt the Spirit, and asked if she could hear the messages again, and apologized to us for being rude! How cool is that? It's the first and probably only time in my mission someone who was marked as do not contact has had a sudden drastic change of heart. The funniest part, I was talking to Elder Frost earlier in the week about a story dad told me. Where some missionaries contacted people marked as do not contact, and one of them ended up getting baptized. But I talked about how you don't hear about the hundreds or thousands of do not contacts who react in... different ways, and that that never actually happens... Well, I was wrong ha-ha. We will see how this next week goes, I love you guys, talk to you next week!

 

Our last district picture before transfers in a couple of days.

Tuesday: 

I had an umbrella for the first part of the conversation,
but at some point, I realized it wasn't doing any good.
We were soaked through our clothes!

So the big thing that happened today was that Elder Bodily and I went to run to the store across the street and ran into a drunk guy named Dan. We talked to him for well over an hour in the pouring rain, haha. He had interesting stories mostly about poor choices he'd made in his life and the consequences. At the end, he was talking about how grateful he was for us and that we were doing God's work even though we didn't really do anything for him. It made me think about the General Conference talk about how there's so many people in the world talking, and a lot of their problems would be helped by someone listening. We finally said goodbye, and he said he was gonna go to sleep under his porch. 

After that, we had a lesson with a guy named Willie; it was probably my most personal lesson ever. I talked about my personal conversion story, and we really connected over his desire to feel what everyone else talks about feeling. 

Wednesday: 

Started off by dropping the car off to the sisters. I only keep mentioning it, because I like starting the day off with a walk. We had a normal day and ended by dropping off a Book of Mormon and cookies for Willie. He lives in the same apartment as the Haitian Creole Elders, so they let us in and then he talked for a bit. They are really great missionaries and are basically single handedly building a Haitian creole branch here.

I love these missionaries! The Haitian Creole Elders are doing amazing things.

Thursday:

Today was a GREAT day. We had a chapel tour with Augosto which was amazing for a few reasons. First off, this was our first time ever actually seeing him, because we only do voice calls. Second off, it was my first time ever having an in-person lesson. Lastly, because at the end, we set a goal for his baptismal date. His testimony is growing so much, and he always talks about how he knows he's on the right path! We celebrated by getting Popeye's, which I only point out 'cause it was my second time ever! It killed our grocery budget, but it was worth it. 

We were doing some calls to people who had lost contact with the missionaries and found a guy named Campos. We had talked with him about 2 months ago. He had wanted to meet us again, but we forgot to mark him as interested, and so we never got back in contact! I'm super embarrassed about that. 

That night, we had a lesson with Francis and met his daughter Ana. She's great; I can't wait to get to know the whole family. 

Friday:

There was a training planned before district council, but it got cancelled, so we got to just sit and talk for an hour about our areas and what's going well. We planned our district p-day until our meeting started. 

It was a slow day with no lessons, so we delivered cookies to a bunch of people we were teaching and feijoada to the missionaries in our district. When we got home, Keke called us out of no where and we had a fun lesson with him. We will see where that leads. I'm hopeful.

Yup. I'll miss him.

Saturday:

We went to go get Elder Bodily's mask from the Spanish Elders, and when we got home Marillia, another woman we are talking to, asked if we could talk. We had a lesson with her, and it was a lot of fun. At the end of the day, we got transfer texts aaaaaand Elder Bodily is out of here! My next companion will be Elder Feliciano from Mozambique! We were high energy, so we walked to the store and bought some magnum bars and KitKats and called it a day! 

Sunday:

We got to go to church in person, and they bumped the number of people allowed in a room up to 50! So we were able to meet more people in the ward a little bit and say Hi to the Hortas. When we got home, we had a lesson with a lady named Mary. Right as it started, a member in the ward texted, "I'll be at your house in 15 minutes to bring you dinner!" But because the call was on Elder Bodily's phone we couldn't answer haha. So he had to wait a little bit, but we were so grateful!

Monday: 

District P day!!!! It was great, we planned to go on a hike at 9. Elder Bodily and I got to the trailhead and there were no other cars, so we called the group to see how close everyone was. The Salem Elders were at the store buying a pumpkin; the sisters were just leaving; the Haitian Creole Elders were still in the shower, haha. Anyways, after the hike, we skipped rocks, went to a park, and carved pumpkins. We ended the day with a basketball game where a random guy who was getting off work asked to join in and smoked us all, haha. At least he was on my team. 

We headed home and had a lesson with Campos. It went really well. He's a great guy! We had a random text from some unsaved number who somehow knew our names and like cussed us out for being missionaries. That was weird and not fun, but I'm kinda sad that for some reason he has had such a negative experience with religion that he takes time out of his day to seek us out and send that. 

3 Nephi 12:11 And blessed are ye when men shall ^arevile you and persecute, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake;

12 For ^aye shall have great joy and be exceedingly glad, for great shall be your ^breward in heaven; for so ^cpersecuted they the prophets who were before you.

13 Verily, verily, I say unto you, I give unto you to be the ^asalt of the earth; but if the salt shall lose its savor wherewith shall the earth be salted? The salt shall be thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men.

14 Verily, verily, I say unto you, I give unto you to be the light of this people. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.

15 Behold, do men light a ^acandle and put it under a bushel? Nay, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light to all that are in the house;

16 Therefore let your ^alight so shine before this people, that they may see your good works and ^bglorify your Father who is in heaven.

Have a great week. Here are some more silly pictures for your enjoyment.