(Elder Mackrory)
Bom dia todos!
This week seriously flew by. It took quite a while to
remember each of the days. People say that the mission goes the slowest in the
first and last 6 months, and if so, I have no idea how I'm going to keep up.
It's already flying by. They days are long, but the weeks are about as long as
a day. It's wild. Yesterday was Wednesday. I'm pretty sure. And two days ago
was the last pday. Time is not real.
Anyway, we'll kick this one off with the fusca count. Good
news! It's at 393! This means that last week's slump was likely due to the
increased number of people out of town. I bet you some areas who don't get many
of them saw a few more. Perhaps I'll be in an area next Christmas that does not
have many, and the Christmas week will see more, rather than less.
We started off the week (the year) on an exchange with Elder
Humerez. It was a crazy day because we had to postpone our district council
meeting 3 times because the sisters were stuck in post-holiday traffic all day,
returning from starting their exchanges. We visited a lot of people and did a
lot of productive organizing of our area book this way.
On Wednesday, we had lunch at my favorite restaurant. But
they upped their prices. From 15 reals to 16 reals. Can you believe it?
Outrageous. Anyway, that night, we had a family night with Kamilla and Douglas
and Kaique. Os Brabos. They were playing a PS5 Harry Potter game that had the
map all wrong. They put the quidditch pitch where the maze goes and Hagrids hut
just outside of the botanical gardens. And the worst part was they put the
Ravenclaw common room in the grand staircase! Everybody knows it is in the
astronomy wing. Anyway, Kaique tried to make his avatar look like me, but it
ended up looking like Iceman from top gun. I've forgotten the actors name. The
message we shared was about having personal experiences with God. It was
awesome, and I could tell most everyone was feeling the spirit. Afterward, we
hung out a little bit, and I played a bunch of idle games with Kaique and
talked about grammar (Portuguese and English). My main takeaway was that both
languages are completely illogical, but English is more so.
On Thursday, we had lunch with a member of the stake
presidency, and he helped me read a calculus book in Portuguese. It was pretty
cool. Calculus is so cool. While I resent Sir Isaac Newton for inventing
gravity, I'm glad he invented calculus. We lad a lesson with someone named
Ilcinety, an older lady who liked to talk. It was difficult to get the message
across because we also had to listen to her life story. But she agreed to meet
with us the next day, so that's a win.
On Friday, we had our lesson with Ilcinety, and this time,
she listened intently and made on topic comments. We have some appointments
with her next week, and I'm excited to see her progress.
In district council, I suggested we have a “Noite Familiar
da Casa” in order to bring the spirit back into our house. Friday night, we did
this. We ordered pizza and just kinda hung out for a while, and afterwards, as
it goes with a family night, we shared a message. I started out by sharing a
scripture from the Book of Mormon. I also shared the experience that I had with
the Book of Mormon through that scripture. I expected that I would share my
testimony and that would finish the message and we'd all go to bed. But what
happened instead was beyond that. All five of the other Elders present had
something more to share on the subject. Each testimony was unique and brought
the spirit. The presence of the holy ghost was once again in our home. Since
then, the house has been quiet in the mornings, not in a noise level way, but
in a peaceful way. The ethic to worth has been generally higher and morale
(especially on my side) remedied.
Saturday, and up until this point, I have been on a split
with Elder Levie again. That night, we played basketball with some of our
investigators and the Elders in the adjacent area, Lagomar. I am not good at
basketball, so any opportunity to not burden people with my lack of skill by
sitting out, I took. Which ended up being really good, because one of our
investigators who came was injured and couldn't play anyway, so I hung out with
him. He speaks fluent English, but all his teachers were from England, and so
he's got a Birmingham accent. It's pretty wack. I was not expecting it at all.
It's like if you were to hear a cat bark. It's just not natural. But it was
cool to talk to him because he's a mechanical engineer, so we got along
naturally. We talked about a lot of things from the language, to working on oil
rigs, to the trial of Jesus being completely illegal under Jewish law. It was
awesome to talk in English about a subject I had recently studied.
Other weekly highlights:
Had raspberry chocolate ice cream and it was freaking
amazing
Ran from a street dog
Ate pretty much all day Sunday
Literally half the ward got up to bear their testimonies on Sunday,
I’m glad I got up there first
SummaRio:
Time isn’t even real, this week felt like 3 days
393 fuscas! Turns out last week’s slump was likely due to
holiday travel
Tuesday we were very productive organizing our area book
Wednesday we had a super fun family night where I played on
the PS5
We taught an old lady who likes to share her life story
while the discussion is happening
The next day, we taught her again, and she listened intently
and shared relevant comments.
We had a “family night” with just the elders of our district
in which I shared a message, brought the spirit, but most importantly, helped
those in my house recognize the previous lack of the spirit. Since then, it’s
been great.
I had a split with Levie again and we played basketball with
investigators and talked with a Brazilian who had an Birmingham accent. He
learned from peaky blinders and British teachers.
Tender Mercy: When I went to the bank this week to withdraw
my money, the dollar was down, and so I would have lost like R$60, so I decided
to wait until it was up, but we haven’t had a chance to go back, so I just use
my card. The bus doesn’t accept card, and so I had to use whatever I had left
in cash. And I ran out on Wednesday. And yet I didn’t. My budget said I had run
out, but each time I needed bus money, I was able to find some cash of mine. It
definitely should not have worked out, but there was always money provided in a
miraculous way.
Spiritual Thought:
A memorized scripture can be a friend in a time of
difficulty, discomfort, or disorientation. One scripture I really like is from
the writings of Moses, the words of God, “For behold, this is my work and my
glory— to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man”. I've had this
scripture memorized for literally as long as I can remember. It helps me keep
an eternal perspective. What is one sucky day when life is a blink in
comparison to Eternal joy with my Heavenly Father and my family? I invite all
of you to choose a scripture that brings you comfort or direction, and memorize
it. This memorized scripture will pop into your head whenever you need comfort
or direction. I promise you it works. Even if it's just a part of a scripture.
Do it.
Not too many photos this week, sorry.
1. Cool graffiti. Note: saudades does not have a translation
in English. It kinda describes feelings of missing someone or something. But
that's not it really.
2. Lunch with Bishop
3. Interesting Christmas photo sent to us by a member
4. Shirtless Santa (what is my comp doingggg)
5. New year’s eve selfie
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