Pages

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Week 4: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 10am

1 week till christmas! We get a line broadcast of Elder Bednar for Christmas, super excited. Listened to an amazing talk by Quinten L. Cook yesterday night. Sister Degn told us we can't call on christmas cause too many missionaries but we'll get an E-mail and i'll ask my mission president once I reach the field. My new district is great. We're very diligent in learning and have an awesome rule of no english once we step foot in the classroom. We're learning extremely quickly. Elder Dunkel's learning a bit quicker it's fantastic. We get a new batch of brasileiros tomorrow and we're hoping they're as good as our first batch. Elder Nascimento slept in the bunk under me for the first two weeks and he helped with learning portugues soo much. Our district is now 47-B and the old district is still 47-A. Every night during our snacktime we still get together and do nice notes to eachother to spread the chrismas cheer, it helps spread felizidade and excitement to everyone. The new sisters are in the old district and are Sister Roberts from Minnesota and Sister O'Brien from England. Sister O'Brien's really cool and fun to talk with Sister Roberts is really good at volleyball. Our new instructors, Irmao Alvino and Irmao Barros are awesome. Irmao Alvino looks like buzz lightyear and is really good at keeping everyone animado and ready to learn. Irmao Barros is super awesome and kinda crazy but he has his reasons. They're great a great teaching combination and are helping ous to learn so much portugues and gospel doctrine. The districts are changing all the time. Today is Sister O'Brien's last day in 47-A cause she came straight from her house and is moving to a lower level district. Kinda sad cause we just got to know her but the Lord works in mysterious ways. The weeks are travelling at light speed. The advent calender was a great idea thanks. Next week since our p-day's wednesday it'll be moved to Friday instead. My favorite part about P-day is going to the temple, not only is the temple awesome and extremely beautiful but the bus ride through the city is super fun too. One of the instructors here who I spoke with lived in Batavia for a few years, it's a small world after all. Miss everybody back home but i'm loving the mission life more and more each day. Enough stalling I've been saving the best for last, it's long but bear with me. Last friday we went proselyting and it was definitely the highlight of my week. We each got three Livros de Mormon then we took the bus with Irmao Alvino into downtown Sao Paolo, which is like riding a roller coaster with no straps. When we got there we split into our companionships and were given a city block with both sides of the street to place our L.D.M's. Me and my companion began walking and for fourty minutes were too scared to talk to people and had walked the both sides of the street about six times until we found Irmao Alvino. he told us that we should try at the bus stops and begin with telling the people that we have a presente de Natal for them. We gained the courage to talk to an old man and he reamed us out about how the book may be true but the bible is sacred kind of terrifying expirement. As we were walking back across the street to tell Irmao Alvino I felt inclined to talk to a man at the stop walk. He sparked it all. He was super receptive, read Moroni 10:3-5 on the spot, and promised to read and pray about it. When we finished he said thank you for helping in my life and we walked away it was fantastic! After that we got super excited and spoke with everyone we felt inclined to. We ended up placing all our L.d.M's with about five minutes to spare and almost everyone who took them began reading on the spot. We asked the new elders for one of their books and placed it while we were waiting at the bus stop. When we got on the bus a sister sitting in front of me asked where I was from and I told her where I was from and how I'm a missionary then ended up giving her another book of mormon I grabbed from one of the other missionaries which she began to read on the bus. I was so excited but the best was yet to come. On the bus Elder Lincoln told me how he heard about his friend preaching on the bus to everyone and he said it'd be cool to do. We felt that it wasn't a bad idea and got permission from Irmao Alvino so we got in the middle of the bus which had gotten super packed. We were so nervous but we began "Tudo Mundo! Nos temos um mensagem por voces" and then let the spirit take the wheel. Sao Paolo traffic is the worst and we were stuck in rush hour so we ended up teaching all about the book of mormon and most of the restoration to six sisters who were super helpful with the language barrier. After fourty minutes we asked who wanted a Livro de Mormon and gave out five to the sisters who were listening but to our suprise there was a pool of passengers below us who had been listening as well and wanted some too. We had run out of books so as quickly as we could we wrote the missionaries number on a notecard and gave out about five or six of those. Right when we were giving the last passenger a card the bus finally reached it's next destination letting off almost all the passengers leaving us extremely happy for the next thirty minutes till we got back to the CTM. It was my greatest experience so far and the biggest testimony builder for the gift of tongues and the gift of the holy ghost. Love you all hope you're having as great of a time back home as I am. Deus te abencoas.
Com Abrasos
Elder Menendez

No comments:

Post a Comment