This week had its ups and downs. The week started out with us doing splits. I teamed up with Elder A. Sousa to do some teaching and I got to meet some of his investigators. We were held up at one investigator´s house, because his brother (who had been drinking) insisted that we have something to eat. He sent his brother out to buy us coke, but then he found that we don´t drink coke (after he had already bought it), so he sent his brother out again to buy us other soda.
One exciting thing that happened was that we had a branch cake/pie baking competition and our investigators were the judges. Elder Swenson and I made a pie thingy, but something went wrong and it became ice cream and then soup, but it was still delicious.
One disapointing thing was that we found almost no one new to teach. We were doing a lot of tracting, but after hearing the message of the restoration no one wanted to change, which is the most frustrating part of missionary work.
When Sunday came around, we went to go get all of our investigators to go to church, but no one was home, other than this really awesome kid, Luciano. It turns out that he knows the branch president´s son. We have his baptism marked for the 12th.
Elder Swenson likes walking more than taking the bus, so last night we walked an hour and a half to an appointment and then another hour and a little bit home, but at least today is P-day.
With all the things that happened this week it means that miracles are around the corner.
Love,
Elder David Short
Sunday, October 30, 2011
A test of faith
We went into this last week feeling really awesome about our work. The week before we had found a lot of awesome new people and we were making plans as to what our next move was.
The zone leaders came down Tuesday night, unexpectedly, to have exchanges. I got to work Elder Pires, from my first district in Anapolis. On Wednesday we worked in trios and Elder Swenson and I teamed up with Elder Boyne,
the other zone leader. I always feels that I learn a lot during exchanges, but that the work seems to slow down.
Thursday we met with little success, and again on Friday, but then Saturday arrived!
Saturday we were tracting out a street and we were finding a lot of soft people who didin´t want to keep commitments. After a horrible lesson, where the person just wanted to challenge us on everything, I turned to Elder Swenson and said:
Me: This is going to be awesome!
E. Swenson: What?
Me: All our lessons today have been horrible, so you know what that means.
E. Swenson: Sure do.....
Me: It means that we´re getting tested to see if we´re worthy of the blessings God wants to send us, so we´re going to find someone awesome today.
That night we taught a family of four that accepted all the commitments and a baptismal date. Now I just hope that I don´t get transferred before they get baptized. Sunday night we found two more families that accepted baptism. Milagres sao reais quando voce cre!
This last week we also started to teach two kids English.
With love,
Elder David Short
pics:
The caju fruit
Me eating the caju fruit
A stick bug that I found in our house
Me eating star fruit
Training (Oct 3rd)
General conference was amazing. We watched it at the chapel (we still haven´t found a new location yet) on a projector. It was the first time that I watched conference in Portuguese, and it wasn´t the same. The translators don´t carry over the characterization in their voices, so the listening was a little bland, but Elder Swenson and I were able to download the audio file afterwards. Now I´m getting a feel for the true awesomeness of this conference. I was a little confused at not hearing any plane stories, or mention of the lack of plane stories this conference, but Elder Uchtdorf´s talk was awesome all the same. I really want the conference ensign now to study everything.
Well to say the least I was spiritually uplifted this week.
Love,
Elder David Short
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