(Elder Mackrory)
Bom dia amigos e família!
The Beetle count is up to 60.5. I can’t wait to see another
half of a beetle. Here, they call the VW Beetle the Fusca.
This week has been full of ups and down. Mostly ups, but a
few notable downs. I was told by many people that the mission would be the hardest
thing I had ever done. It's true. It's not so hard as to make me want to come
home, but hard enough that I am learning so much. It's truly incredible what
the Lord can do with a willing heart. If you are struggling to understand what
you are being taught in school, if work has you bogged down, or any other
situation, pray. Pray for help from your Heavenly Father. He wants to help you
out. As you magnify your faith by praying for help and then putting in the
work, the Lord will magnify your efforts.
This week started off amazing. It was P-day and we went to
the beach. Not only were we at the beach, but it was also perfect weather.
Overcast and 24 degrees. We didn't go in the water, but it was super fun to
play with an American football and with the other missionaries. It was
genuinely pure glee. It then started to rain. We all ran under cover and one
elder forgot his socks in the sand. After it stopped coming down hard, I went
back out to the beach to snap the coolest photo I've taken on the mission. Coolest
Pday yet.
Tuesday I went on a divisão with Elder Zúñiga. He is from
Chile, just north of Santiago. I don't remember the name of his city, but it's
one of the ones that got a temple in the last conference. He's an amazing
missionary and we had a blast. For lunch he taught a lesson about the
atonement. As Zúñiga passed out dessert, he would ask if the person wanted
dessert. Regardless of the answer, I had to do 10 pushups. Not everyone wanted
dessert, but those that did could only have it if I completed the 10 pushups. I
ended up doing 70 pushups in the span of about 3 minutes. We taught a lesson to
a woman named Isabela who was really interested. She participated intently and
the lesson became more of a discussion that we led. It was awesome.
The next day was a lot of street contacting, I don’t
remember much.
My birthday was pretty sick. After lunch we had cake, and
although I don't like coconuts it was pretty good. Then for dinner we also had
cake. This one was amazing. Photo attached. Also it was really cool because I
noticed that I’m participating more in door to door things. We had a lesson
yesterday with a person that I contacted without the help of my comp. It was so
cool.
The next day was Zone conference. It was pretty sick. I got
to see those in my zone as well as in the neighboring zone. It was awesome and
it made me realize how blessed I am. Some elders had never even heard of
churrasco. I have it about weekly. I'm going to one right now. I’m really
grateful to be in a nice area so I can focus on the language entirely. One
thing I’m particularly grateful for is having my own bathroom. That is
practically unheard of in the mission.
I had a thought. I've heard it is estimated that a gorilla
can bench somewhere in the zone of 4000 lbs. I assume that means the average
gorilla. What if you trained it to bench? Gave him one for treat for each plate
he loads one the bar. Make him work out daily. I would estimate that the
average human can bench come where between 100 and 150 lbs. The world record is
somewhere near 1000. By that math, I want to see a gorilla bench somewhere
around 40,000 lbs. Is that possible or is there an asymptote that no muscle,
bone, or ligament can withstand can cross? Would the graph follow an
exponential decay or a logistic kinda thing or something entirely different?
Anyway, Those are the highlights of the week, hope yall are
doing well, don’t hesitate to reach out. I love hearing from all of you.
Spiritual thought: in Portuguese, there are two words for
the verb "to know": Conhecer and Saber. Conhencer is used for a
familiarity or for relationships. Saber is used for information and facts. John
17:3 says, "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only
true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent". Here, "know"
is translated at "conhecer". Eternal life is not to have memorized
all the events of Christ's life, all His appearances in the Old Testament, Book
of Mormon, and in other scriptures. It is understanding motive, understanding
attributes, and understanding doctrine. And how do we understand the doctrine?
See John 17:3 for that one. I urge you to not only read the scriptures, but to
study them and I can promise you will be blessed.
Tender Mercy: Saturday was a crummy day. It was rainy and so
no one wanted to talk. Both of our appointments fell through. It just sucked.
But that day I was on a divisão with Elder Robison. I love my comp, he's
genuinely so awesome, but this day was only bearable because I was able to have
full conversations in English with Elder Robison. It was amazing that the day
that would have sucked Anyway, that I was placed with someone who I could
understand fully and confide in.
SummaRio:
1. Pday was freaking amazing; we went to the beach and it
rained. Genuinely so fun.
2. On my birthday we had two cakes in one day.
3. Zone conference was fun because I got to see more people
from the MTC (Heyy Elder Roberts and Owen)
4. I wonder how much a gorilla could bench with training and
incentives
Photos: I've tried to get these in a correct order but they
never follow what I want
1. Maçã grande?
2. Chocolate cake
3. The busses here have perelli tires, are built by
Mercedes, and are painted suspiciously similar to Petronas.
4. Genuinely the sickest photo of my mission so far
5. Beach weather
6. The Ramen is funny here
7. Zone conference (I wasn't ready)
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