Monday, January 6, 2014

Miracles in Benfica 6-1-2014

Welcome to the new year! I cannot believe that it has gone by so fast! 6 months and I will be talking Portuguese with you guys instead of writing it! :)

I found out that Benfica is the ward and stake, and that it isnt a state division. The area that Im in is called Jardim América, and the neighbor one is called Dama. That might help finding where I am. My street is João Sorongo #435, or something like that. I know its 400 and something, right across the street from Depósito João Sorongo.

Well, the miracles still happen. I have two for you today.
First, on Christmas Eve day, not a whole lot was happening. We didnt have a lot of investigators, so we tried to find new people, which didnt happen too well. We arrived at a corner and stopped to think what to do next, and I had the impression to retrace our steps. I felt something pushing my left shoulder to turn around, and we walked back. As we walked about 70 feet, I looked at the houses passing on the left. Some open, a lot closed. One had a man visible busy doing something. After about 6 houses, I stopped, turned around again, identified the exact house we needed to visit, the one with the person in it.
We called him over, [name redacted] is his name from Rio, and we asked about him and his family. He said that his mom died about 3 months ago, that it would be the first Christmas without her, and that it wouldnt be very happy. We shared the Plan of Salvation and it seemed to comfort him. We have tried to share more, but he isnt home a lot of the time.

Number two. A few days ago, I was cleaning out our beast of an area book. This area is pretty old, and has a ton of papers in it. I went ripping pages out that were older than a year. I was in the process os crumpling up a page that was two years old and particularly lacking information when I just couldnt bring myself to finish. I smoothed it out, looked at it, and put it back.
*Note for people: since houses here are really cheap, (rent is sometimes as small as R$ 250 or R$ 300, wouldnt that be SO nice??) the people of Fortaleza move a lot.*
A baptismal interview fell through this last Saturday, and I felt that we needed to pass that house that day. We went at the former interview time, and it just so happened that she hadnt moved, she still lived there, and she was actually home at that hour! She studies with the Jehovas Witnesses, but accepted to read the Book of Mormon and she came to church yesterday! Her name is [name redacted], is about 35. She lives with her dad, who was making comments and warnings on how we had to leave or he would kill us. At least thats what I think I heard. Hes a bit old, uses a cane, so Im not too worried about dying at his hands, however we need to keep our image as high as we can. So we will find a members house to teach her at.

Okay, so the post office nabbed my birthday presents. :/ Im going there as soon as we finish here.

Dad, I completely agree with you guys that I need to marry someone fun. Ive thought about it a bit, and that is something that I definitely want. Someone with a sense of adventure. :) but not too much adventure, we all know what happens with too much. :D
I have a story that I think youll like. We have a canal really close to our house, and so the mosquitos are a pest here. Even with fans (ventiladores) and bug spray they still attack like rabid beasts. Elder Tenney counted 135 bug bites after 2 weeks! We decided that it had to stop. We bought some aerosol insecticide, closed all the windows, gassed the place on our way out for the day, and came back. Good thing, no mosquitos. Bad thing, lets just say that when we step outside of our house into the strong morning sun with near 100 degree weather, it feels like a cool spring day in the mountains. :D hahaha! gostou?

Well, I gotta end this monster of a letter. Plus my time is about up. Thank you so much for your care and love! I wish you all a happy new year, may it be bright and cheery!

~Elder Wille

No comments:

Post a Comment