Ahhh…
I do love Preparation Days. This one was a bit hectic though. We did studies in
the morning, then we left to email. The internet
was super slow and got cut off at the end, so sadly I did not get to say good
bye to my dear mother. I am sure she is probably worrying about me. I hate
leaving her hanging like that. But, on the interesting side, the decision has
been made to do the “operation” to take care of my hernia. That will be real
nice to have it out of the collection of things I have to worry about. We went
to Axxxxx & Mxxxxx Jxxxxx’s house. That was pretty fun. We played a lot of
games and had a great time. Everyone had fun. Axxxxx is a huge muscular guy
that is super serious. I have never seen him laugh or joke. But tonight he was,
and he was quite funny too. It was nice reminder to always have fun, and to not
judge people on first impressions.
Tuesday
we started the day out solid with personal study and a lesson. The lesson
however, was not the world’s best. This dear son of God was more interested in
having a debate about where the Garden of Eden was than learning about the
Lords Restored Gospel. Luckily for us we were with Vxxxxxx, a returned
missionary in our branch. He helped out a whole lot! After that we had lunch,
the rest of our studies, and headed back out for the rest of this scorching hot,
bone-dry day. I will admit it wasn’t as hot as it was in November and December
in Manga, but those months are still coming. The rest of the day went quite
well in all honesty. We had four more lessons, two of which we had our newest
member Dxxxxx Mxxxxxx with us to help teach and testify. And man is he
powerful! He has quite a background in religion, meaning he has been through
the gamut of many different churches, and he knows a lot. I can see us asking
for his help in lessons a whole lot. So something I have been trying is to be
more sincere. Actually too go deep down into my heart, individually for each
person I contact and teach, instead of just contacting or teaching (which
happens sometimes out of tiredness). But wow does it truly make a all the difference.
Wednesday
we left the house right at eight to walk to the Mission Office for the Mission
Leadership Training. The training was incredible. President Kretly taught a lot
about how to leave a legacy. He taught about hard work, loving service, and
kind acts. He talked about persevering and adapting through change and trials.
He shared the stories of two people. One was an amazing Brazilian surfboarder, who
at 14 or 15 years old lost one of his legs. He still wanted to surf but
couldn’t take his prosthetic into the salt water. He worked and worked and
developed a method of surfing with one leg and one hand. The other story is the
founder of Jet Blue in America and its equivalent, Azul, in Brazil. He is
a member of the Church and is never afraid to bring up the church at every
opportunity. He also isn’t afraid of work. As the owner of two huge airlines,
he serves passengers and helps clean the plan after the flight. Needless to say
it was a super good meeting. After that I went to talk to President about the
hernia situation. I’ll be going to South Africa Monday to get my hernia taken
care of.
Thursday
really early I had to go to the immigration office with nine other Elders,
Lynn, Ebmeyer, Roberts, Christiansen, Gage, and Hatfield to renew our
“D.I.R.E.S” and Elder DeSouza and Carvalho to apply for theirs. We got to
immigration at 8H and had to stay there until about 12:30H. Ugh. So it was a
lot of sitting and waiting, but in the end, was good. It was nice to talk to a
lot of the Elders from my group; none of us could believe that we have (almost)
been in the country for one year. For me one year will be on August 11th.
I
thought Friday would be a normal day in the area, joke! Ugh. First off we had
District Meeting. That went well. Then we came home for lunch and studies. Then
Nxxxx Uxxxxxx came over with an electrician and a plumber to more or less make
a quote and a list on the things that the house needs to get fixed. That took a
whole bunch of time. Ugh. Finally at about 16H we got out to the area.
Unfortunately to be very sad, pretty much all of our lessons fell through so
that is pretty depressing. I am super tired of having everything fall through,
especially when we have a member with us! I mean what the heck! But is Bem. I
guess I can’t stress too much about it. I can just do everything in my power
and trust in the Lord for the rest.
Saturday we had a day packed full of lessons, however, they
all fell through. I just don’t quite know what to do about that. I feel like
Elder Mistola and I are doing all the things that we are supposed to, but
everything is still just crashing down. I don’t know but I hope that it gets
better. But, something interesting happened today, as we were sitting on rocks
trying to call a lesson a young woman walked up to us. She said she wanted a
Book of Mormon. After asking a couple of questions, we found out that she is an
investigator from Magoanine that is visiting her brother. So we got the
reference of her brother and gave her a Book of Mormon.
Sunday
church went nicely, after church we had lunch and some studies. Then we went
out to have some lessons and guess what? They DIDN’T all fall through! Glory
Halleluiah! We had two pretty good lessons today with Jxxxxxx was with us, it
went nice. However still two of our lessons fell through. But I would much
prefer to have half of the lessons fall through as opposed to all of them.
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