I've been spending the last eight months

 (Elder Mackrory)

Opa pessoal, como vai?

It's crazy that I've been out here on a mission for 8 months now. That means I'm more than a third of the way done. Just like that. Insane. I probably could have used a better title given the things that happened this week, but there's only one week that I can use this title. Anyway it's been a good week, we saw 15 fuscas, bringing our total to 589.

There have been some crazy things happening this week. We'll start with last pday. We went to the Waterfalls of Piabetá as a zone. It was sick. I brought myself some sandwiches and accidently brought and ate all my deli meat and cheese. That turned out to be a minor inconvenience later in the week but its fine now. We decided to take a hike up the top of the waterfall this time. Looking back, that hike probably succeeded the level of difficulty allowed in the missionary standards. What happens at zone pday stays at zone pday.

On Tuesday I had a division. I was with Elder Sano, who I knew in Macaé. Perhaps you remember when we made Philly cheese steaks with him and Elder Schmuhl. Anyway, it was a lot of fun and I learned a lot from the experience. Kudos to my boy Elder DeWitt for training Elder Sano right. We had smoothies for dinner and cake for breakfast. Lots of good times.

On Wednesday morning, when Elder Kjar came to pick me up from the division, we had a phone call lesson with our friend Camila. More on her later. She said she had been watching General Conference and had questions. The first one she asked was “what is a covenant?”. Good question, right? So we explained that it is a sacred two-way promise between you and God, made into effect by a sacred act, such as baptism. We explained how when we promise to follow the commandments with this sacred ordinance of baptism, we allow ourselves to receive more of God's love and His spirit in our lives for guidance, protection, and comfort as part of God's return promise. When baptisms are performed by someone with proper authority, the covenant takes effect. We then invited her to be baptized on the 28th of this month and she said yes! She was so happy to make this commitment and so were we.

On Thursday morning, on our daily phone lessons with Camila (as requested by her), we talked more about covenants and such. Then she asked another very good question. She had been watching more conference, and noticed a lot about temples. She asked “What happens in your guy's temples? How can I go?”. Good question, right? So we gave her the brief rundown that temples are sacred places dedicated as The House of The Lord. Inside, we perform sacred ordinances for us and for our ancestors and those who never had the opportunity to receive such ordinances in mortality. Since we had another appointment soon, we explained that we love to talk more with her about temple ordinances on Friday morning. In the meantime, we sent her the goated YouTube video of Elder Soares and his wife giving a tour and explanation of the Rio de Janeiro temple. She watched it immediately after our lesson and sent this message, “I watched the video, I am very impacted, I want to go to the temple so much to be a part of this family”. So yeah.

Thursday afternoon, (yes this day gets even better), we visited our friend Sheila. She works weird hours and so it is difficult to mark appointments with her. But when we do have appointments, they are incredible. We got to her house and started our usual catch up conversations. This time I asked what she does for work. She works with survivors of domestic and sexual violence, helping them receive comfort, medical, legal, and financial help, and just overall making things right. You guys wanna guess what my own mother does for work? this exact thing. I commended her for her courage and dedication to such a difficult and essential work. Eventually, we got into the message. We taught her about the 5 principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost: and fifth, Enduring to the End. We then invited her to be baptized, emphasizing the blessings of having the Gift of the Holy Ghost. After the lesson, I felt inspired to text my mom (don't tell mission president) and ask her for some thoughts about how The gift of the Holy Ghost is a blessing for her work. Incredible work mom. After shoving her answer in Google translate (because I'm lazy) and fixing all the errors that Google translate makes, I sent it along to Sheila, who is now very excited to receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost at her baptism.

On Friday, we had a lesson with Iraci. She's freaking awesome. She had a baptism date but it fell through. She's moving to central Brazil to be closer to her family, especially her mother, who is growing old. She is determined to be baptized, she just wants to do it there so that her family can be there. That's fine. So we made sure she's in contact with the missionaries there. Everything will work out. She is progressing very well and recognizes the presence of the Spirit when we are there. We then rushed over to two more lessons with our friends Ivanete and Maria. Why are 90% of our teaching group women?

Saturday, we had our first in-person lesson with Camila. she always has awesome questions as you know, so we asked. She said “let me go grab my notebook”. Guys she has like 10-15 pages of notes from conference. We answered her questions and got on with our message. We shared the restoration with Joseph Smith, the first vision, and the Book of Mormon. It was great. She mentioned she has a son with 8 years of age (that's foreshadowing). After that, we went into a new neighborhood that we've never visited before for a lesson. It's all gang territory, as expected. Anyway, we ended up spending like 2 hours in that lesson because Marcio and his mom had so many good questions and insights. Missionaries, do not underestimate the importance of the great apostasy. It is your foundation for introducing the Book of Mormon. We had sandwiches and coke and he sang to us with his guitar. Good day.

Yesterday was stake conference. Sheila was working unfortunately, but we had Iraci, Camila, and Miguel (Camila's kid) all there. When we met Miguel, Camila introduced us and we explained about Camila's baptism and how he could get baptized too. He just hugged his moms leg being shy. Oh well. We will get there. Anyway, there was a baptism after church for another set of missionaries. Camila and Miguel stayed to watch. While Elder Kjar and I set up chairs, she was explaining to everyone how she will be baptized. Life's great. Until Miguel expressed some serious fear of baptism waters. As we waited for the service to start, I was coloring with Miguel. So at least he doesn't fear me now. We're boys. When the baptism happened, Miguel sat on the ground right in front to see. After it happened, he ran up to his mom saying Só isso? Eu também quero!” “That's it! I want too!” So we marked his baptism date on the same day as his mom. Good day.

Then at lunch I tried shrimp for the first time. It's ok, not something I would eat unless I forgot what it tasted like. I'd rather the chicken tenders. Then after lunch us four got called over by a guy. This is normal, lots of people are confused why white gringos are walking around in suits. So we go over and his sitting at a table full of literal crack (act natural). We explain our purpose and all, while he sells some guy some crack. All the while going “uh huh” and “yeah" to us. Then we walked away. That's It.

So yeah that's all that happened this week. In conclusion, if there are any missionaries out there wondering if a perfect investigator exists, she does and her name is Camila and she lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

SummaRio:

I hit 8 months on the mission, 15 fuscas, 589

Went to a waterfall hike for zone pday

Went on a division with Elder Sano

Marked a baptism date with Camila

On Thursday committed Camila to go to the temple

Also marked a baptism date with Sheila

Why do women make up 90% of our teaching group?

Saturday we had a great lesson with Camila and later with Márcio and Elizabeth

At stake conference we marked a baptism with Camila's dope kid Miguel

Tried shrimp for the first time and talked to a guy as he actively sold crack

Tender mercy: there was a baptism after stake conference! If it wasn't for that, it might have been more difficult to mark Miguel's baptism. Simple, yet powerful.

Little heads up: this week is transfers so we will see how that goes

Spiritual thought: While meeting with Camila she talked about an indescribable joy that she has from studying and living the gospel. Iraci described it as “a victory”. For others, peace, comfort, and tranquility have been used. For everyone, the joy of the gospel comes individually according to our needs and personalities. For me, this joy can be described as “clarity”. How do you feel the joy of the Gospel?

1. Camila, Miguel and the gang

2. Super scary itsy bitsy spider

3. People here think that if you make giant artwork of mosquitoes that dengue goes away

4. Bird

5. Spices galore

6. Márcio and Elizabeth

7. Zone pday

8. Me in the jungle (I def thought my mission was gonna be like that)

9. Waterfall

10. Cute jumping spider (pictured here not jumping)