My Last Entry

Elder´s Log. Mission Date 24.09.2012.
This shall be my last entry.
The last two years have flown by faster than Jacob´s dream.
My companion asked me how I was feeling. I asked him if he remembered his last week at home for going to the MTC. I said that it felt a little like that. I feel that I´m leaving something familiar to start something new.
I´m in a weird mix of emotions.
I won´t forget the people I´m leaving here.
I´m super excited to come back next year to visit.
´´What can I say more?´´ Jacob 6:12
Com Saudades,
Elder David Short

I don´t know how to feel right now.

Dear People,
There was a lot of sad stuff that happened this week.
On Tuesday I had my last zone conference, and in accordance with tradition, I had to bare my farewell testimony. My deathgrip on the pulpit was all I could do to keep from falling over. I was shaking a lot, and doing my best to not cry. I looked down at the front row and saw that some of the sisters were crying, so I couldn´t look at the front row for the rest of my testimony. I was the first in my group to talk, and after me I was able to hear the testimonies of Elder Grandy and Elder Gubler. After the testimonies we watched Only a Stonecutter. At that point I couldn´t handle it anymore. I broke down and cried like a little girl.
Sunday was pretty amazing. In an effort to get a better church attendence, the ward offered a special lunch for everyone that came to watch the meetings. We had an attendence of over a hundred people. Since it was testimony meeting (and probably my last testimony meeting) I had a great spiritual compulsion to bear my testimony. It was a lot like my testimony at the zone conference (shaky, wanting to cry, etc), but I got through it. I was able to control myself from crying this time.
That´s all I have to say about that.
Love,
Elder David Short

More Baptisms

This week we were delighted with two more baptisms in our area. We baptized Sandra and her grandson Paulo.
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I lost my train of thought.

This week we semi-officially divided the area with the sisters. Semi because we have two investigators that we´re still teaching on the sisters´ side. We are now working on one side of the freeway and them on the other. They´re the fortunate ones to be working on the side of the freeway that has the church, but our side is sure to have many of the elect as well. We tracted a lot this week, but starting out in a new area that has very little members is tough work, but we´re excited for new challenges, but I´m going to be careful to not pray for greater mountains to climb, like Elder Eyring.

It appears that the sisters are having some difficulty with opening a new area, but the members are really helpful, and we´re doing what we can.

Saturday, I was making brownies for the baptism, and I fell short one egg. We decided to ask a member who lives on our street if she had one to spare. We walked over, she invited us in, and we sat down. She asked us what was up. We told her that we had a very special message to share with her, but in order to share it we would need an egg. It turned out that she didn´t have an egg, so we apoligized for wasting her time and left. The story may not have been all that interesting to read, but please try to imagine my showmanship during the part when I asked for the egg, and you´re bound to giggle.
Other stuff happened this week, but I´m hard pressed to remember what that stuff is.

Love,
Elder David Short

two weeks of awesomeness

Dearest Family,
A lot has happened in the last two weeks, so I´ll try to summarize.
The week before last, we had one baptism. She´s mom of a recent convert. she used to go to another church, but because of health problems she decided to attend with her daughter. She came, she saw, she liked and she got baptized.
For P-day last week we went with the district to Peropolis, a small city about twenty away by bus. There´s a dinosaur museum there that we wanted to see, but it wasn´t till we got there that we discovered that everything is closed only on Mondays. Our hopes and dreams of seeing dinosaurs were shattered, but were heard that they had some waterfalls nearby so we decided to take advantage of the opportunity to do some hiking and take some sweet pics. In the spirit of P-day, Elder Grandy and I decided to sing some songs from our favorite disney movies. The waterfall wasn´t that awesome, but it was fun to do something different.

This last week was busy and complicated.
We received three more companionships in our zone, and one of those was in our area. We had a special meeting on Thursday to announce the new districts in our zone. Sadly I am no longer part of Elder Gubler´s district. Wednesday the sisters arrived to make the number of missionaries in our ward four. They both are Brazilian, which make me one of two Americans in our district.
We have high set goals for the district, in the final weeks of this month, and I´ve set some pretty high set goals for myself in the final weeks of the mission. We had another baptism this week. It wasn´t a baptism to save a soul, because this soul was already saved. Her name is Patricia and she was born with some mental disorders, so she isn´t really accountable for her actions. She´s been going to church with a family in the ward and she told us that she wanted to get baptized. She didn´t need a remission of her sins, but she wanted to be a member of the church. It was a special baptism.

This week we have two more people who are ready for baptism. I´ll be sure to send pictures next week.
Meu tempo acabou!
Love,
Elder David Short

pics

Casamento!

Dear Family,
First of all, I would like to say that this week I learned to make homemade gnocchi, so my culinary powers are growing.
I´ve been a little nervous recently, because I´m terrified of getting transferred with only one transfer left on the mission. This week marks the last week of my second to last transfer.
A lot of little things happened this week, but most are too insignificant to mention.
The biggest news that I have is that next week our area will be receiving Sister missionaries. So it will two Elders and two Sisters working in the same ward. I´m not sure how I feel about that. I have a lot of mixed feelings about sisters from my Wyoming experiences, but until now I haven´t worked with sisters in Brazil.
The couple that was going to get married last will be getting married this week (because of a paperwork thingy.)
We had lunch with a less active on Friday and she said that she´d only go to church if we came back to eat cake later. When cake is offered I´m not one to complain. We ate cake the next and she came to church Sunday. It was the first time that she had been to church in almost two years.
Everyone is excited about going to the temple in September. We´re getting our recent converts and reactivated members pumped to baptize their ancestors.
Love,
Elder David Short

The Lord Blesses the Patient

Dear Family,
The week started out alright, but as the days passed I felt a little deflated (is that something we say in English. I can't remember if that's the right context). The Lord saw my sorrow and in his mercy he decided to bless us with a baptism. At church, one of the members decided to bring her mother, because her mother had previously attended another church, but because of the infirmities of age she couldn't walk by herself anymore. The really liked church, especially the Sunday School classes. After church she told her daughter that she wanted to get baptized. We passed by a little later and they shared the good news. We taught her the first message and marked a baptismal date for the eleventh of August.
On Tuesday, one of the members that we reactivated shared with us that she smokes. I was a little surprised by the news. She explained that her mom wanted to get baptized, but she would only get married if her daughter stopped smoking. Needless to say, we started our stop smoking program with her that night. I tried to get her to drink a cup of cigarette tea (I emptied her cigarettes into a cup and mixed with water) to get her disgusted by the sight and smell of tobacco, but she didn't go for it. This past week we've been passing by her house everyday to make sure that she's staying strong. It's been a fight, but she hasn't smoked once since Tuesday. If she succeeds, her mom and step-dad will get baptized in a month.
One thing that I've seen a lot on my mission is how the Lord tears you down a little so that you can grow and be ready for the coming blessings. "Thank you Mr. Gardener for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me."
Transfers will be coming in two weeks and I'm praying with all my might that I don't get transferred.
That's all I have for today.
Love,
Elder David Short