P-Day is a special day. We buy our food and wash our clothes.
It’s the day we get ready for the rest of the days! Last P-Day I bought a
meager food storage! 2 kg brown rice, 1 kg oats, 1kg dry beans, 4 tins of tuna,
and 4 liters of long-life milk. I do have to say that I am rather happy with
the decision to do so. It feels really nice to have a bit of a buffer. I definitely
know that I will do food storage when I have my own house and family. There is
just no reason not to!
Tuesday most everything fell through. We did have two
lessons. One with Jxxx and Axxxxx and one with Oxxxxxx and Mxxxxx. To both of
them we talked about the Plan of Salvation and the Law of Chastity. That is
always difficult to tell people that they need to get married. Here is the real
interesting thing: Mozambiçan law, yes a law of the Mozambiçan government, is
that a man and a woman have to be legally married to live together. However,
the culture is the exact opposite. The government has the right idea, but the
culture says it is wrong. Thursday we had another good lesson with Jxxxx and
Axxxxx but on Saturday, we had a heart breaking lesson with them. That
wonderful family pulled a 180º on us… They are afraid of what others will think
if they come to God’s true church. Elder DePina read to them from Lehi’s vision
and invited them to come. The problem is they haven’t prayed, read, or come to
church. So, they haven’t used any of the ways we have gen them to know if the
gospel is true. It taught me two good lessons:
#1 what others think doesn’t matte,
we need to please God
#2 the importance of prayer,
reading and church attendance.
Please, never let Satan’s tool of embarrassment stop you
from feeling the fullness of Gods love and joy.
Tuesday we passed the house of one of our investigators, but
the wife said the husband wasn’t there. I had a strong feeling that he was.
Just after I felt that, Elder DePina turned to me and said, “But I have the
impression he is home”. We asked again, and she said the same thing. We disappointedly
said “Okay, we will pass by tomorrow”. I will never know if our investigator
was at home or not but I think it is amazing both my companion and I had the
same impression
Never let laziness get in the way of doing those things that
are important. No one is too lazy to eat; they always remember to feed their
bodies. So please do not neglect feeding your spirit. It needs daily care as
well, in the form of daily prayer and scripture study. We had a lesson with
some fairly new members. They have a problem praying and reading daily, both
together and personally. The thing is though; they have a lot of time together
at home doing nothing. They sleep and that is about it. Every time we pass by
they are asleep or eating. We had a “strong” lesson with them. I hope they can
see the importance of these things and start to change. I know it really makes
me look at myself and really evaluate how I am doing and where I can improve. It
makes me think, I am going to work very heard to make sure NOTHING, and
especially laziness ever gets in the way of daily scripture study and prayer.
On a different note, the city is laying bricks on a road. It
will be very nice. Anyone who knows me knows that a couple of years back my
wonderful family and I laid some odd 3,400 square feet of brick pavers. SO…
seeing a man level the ground and a couple more men methodically place pavers
really sent me back to that long-hot summer putting down brick paver with my
family. At the time I hated it, but afterwards I looked back at what we had
done with pride. Now I realize it was one of my favorite memories with my
family.
I can’t help but say our testimony is like a brick paved
road. The ground must be prepared then laid brick by brick. It is a long
process that takes days, weeks, months and years. Sometimes it seems like there
is little or no progress, but when you stand up and look at it, you can see how
far you have come. Each and every brick is laid with care by diligently doing
those good things you know to do, reading the scriptures and praying to our
Loving Heavenly Father.
One morning, I was rather thoroughly enjoying my breakfast
smoothie when I looked down into my cup (this is where something gross usually
happens) but luckily for me I looked down and saw a smiley face looking back at
me! That, my friends, is a good way to start a day.
Thursday we had a good lesson at 16H 30 at a house that we
door-knocked. Jxxxxxxxx is Agnolada, during the lesson he and his family seemed
to have real interest. I hope it all works out with them.
Friday was good we did contact and had a district meeting
(via phone). Then we had a lot of lessons fall through so we did more contacts.
While we were walking there was a series of loud cracking sounds. My first
thought was gunshots; however, upon looking to the source of the sound I saw a
huge giant (just kidding) I saw a giant Mango tree falling over. It turns out
someone chopped it down. Later Friday evening we had the worst lesson ever. The
husband was nice and listened but the wife kept asking odd and unrelated
questions. When we were about to read out of the Old Testament, she said that
only the New Testament was true. It was a bit of a mess. Finally we said “Oxx,
sorry we have to go. Can we leave with a word of prayer?” Both my companion and
I had nice head-aches after that.
Saturday we had some lessons and watched some General
Conference. Some of the members helped us deep clean the church. I mean we really
cleaned, lots of soap and water all flood-like on the ground. When we were done
it was spotless! As we were leaving the house I saw a boy wearing an Arizona shirt! Whoop!
Represent!
We also watched some General Conference on Sunday. I have
almost been out one year. I am pretty darn confident in Portuguese but
conference is still hard to understand. I did leaps and bounds better than in
October but big words and crazy accents still soar over my head. It doesn’t
help that literally 94% of the time one or mare babies were screaming bloody
murder. A girl from Magonine was visiting Maxixe. She wants us to teach her
dad, we got his number I really hope he works out, at 17h we had an awesome
lesson it was with a family that goes to the 7th day Adventist
church. It was a really solid lesson. At the end the husband Gxxx asked for
more lessons and if he could come to church next week! Yay!
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