(Elder Mackrory)
Bom dia galera! fala a boa!
Vi apenas 4 fuscas, totalizando 1231. This week was started
to speed up in terms of work load as we prepare for the transfer. On Monday the
mission will find out the news. I already know that I’ll stay with Elder
Ribeiro.
Last pday was pretty cool. At 8:30 we left the house for
Lage Park. It’s a super pretty forest park where the trees give complete shade,
and the branches are at least 50 feet up. It’s at the base of the Tijuca
National Forest. But we weren’t there to sit on a bench and enjoy the nature,
though I would like to. We started the second most intense hike of my life. It
the same difficulty as the most intense one, but this time I didn’t have 50 lbs
on my back nor was I at high altitude. But anyway, we started up and it was
super beautiful. Tall trees, short trees, big spiders, waterfalls, tadpoles,
foreigners, and some other cool exotic things. After an hour and 50 minutes of
straight speedwalking, we arrived at the destination of destinations here in
Rio. Christ the Redeemer. A statue of the most important man to ever step forth
on Earth that stands over 125 feet tall. Only downside is that they doubled the
price since the last time one of us went. For anyone wanting to go by trail,
its no longer 30 reais. But anyway, after a painful beep of a credit card, we
went in. It was super packed, so it wasn’t quite as enjoyable as I was hoping,
but this statue is colossal. Nothing could impede my view nor that of anyone
else’s. We spent about 15 minutes up there, took some pictures, and went down.
It was a super clear day, and because of that, Christ was super photogenic.
Problem with that is that we were less photogenic because we could barely open
our eyes for the camera. It was super bright out. We took the trail down again,
this time running a good part of the way. As we were running one time, a 3 foot
green snake fell on top of Elder Vieira, who’s more afraid of snakes than
Indiana Jones. He let out a shriek, but by that time the snake had already fell
to the ground and I, being behind him, hopped over it. As we reached the
bottom, we saw some people stopped on the trail looking into the woods. We stopped
to see what it was, and there were three or four beautiful toucans perched
super close. After taking some pictures, we finished the hike and explored the
paved trails in the Lage park. I would spend an entire pday there just sitting
in the nature. Super pretty.
On Sunday we had church and had so many people come. It was
awesome. We had Vinicius passing the sacrament as well. Normally, we like to
sit with our friends to help explain how things normally work, but this time
all the members just invited them to sit with them. After sacrament meeting, we
hardly got to participate in Elders Quorum because we needed to print something
for the primary and give a blessing to a sister in the ward. But, from what I
hear the comments went on numberless tangents, so that’s ok. Afterwards we
contacted all of our referrals and visited some.
On Monday we had our normal office meeting, and we left for
lunch. Instead of getting our usual tapioca, we had lunch with a member! She
met us at a really nice restaurant and we had some fun conversations. After
lunch, we had a good talk with president about the next secretary. Elder Mayer
officially handed all of his responsibilities over to Brother Butters, so he’s
kinda just helping around with general things. Since he is likely getting
transferred to another area, we need to organize some official responsibilities
for the new secretary since he won’t be the financial guy anymore. What we’re
thinking is that he will take a few responsibilities from each secretary and
that way we can work one more hour in our areas and one less hour in the
office. It will be interesting to see who it ends up.
On Tuesday we did divisions. We also had a guy trying to
make himself the “Boss of EnglishConnect in the Rio de Janeiro North mission”.
We also had miracles. I could write a whole email about this day. In the
morning I got ready fast to go to district council. When the assistants got
there, they asked me if I knew a certain dude. I said yeah, he helps with the
English classes in [insert ward name]. Then they showed me some of the messages
he was sending. He claimed to be the Boss of EnglishConnect for the mission. He
asked to be put as admin in the whatsapp group of the English class there, and
asked for a bunch of missionaries contacts. Thankfully the assistants resisted
his requests. This guy had entered in contact with me before, asking for
contacts of missionaries to help with English classes, and I, under presidents
guidance, told him to hang on until we have our English classes more regulated.
So now that I know that he was getting contacts of missionaries (the
assistants) and was trying to put himself in charge of everything, I sent a
message to all the missionaries to avoid contact with him and advise that he is
not in any way in authority. From responses to the mass message, I come to find
that he had been bothering tons of missionaries. So I sent a strongly worded
message to him. I don’t think I was rude, but he did not give me any
resistance. I told him that ideas he has can be worked out in his ward, and the
missionaries can inform me about the success of his ideas. So that was kinda
crazy. Anyway. Part two of this day. I’m in a division with Elder Fredrick, my
district leader. This time, he came to our area and was a secretary for a day.
Pretty fun, he’s a dawg. He did find ways to make himself useful and help
around a lot, despite not knowing much of secretary work. Part three. We left
for area work about 6pm to interview Tia Vera for baptism. But when we there to
where hangs out, she wasn’t there! No! I was really worried because the baptism
wouldn’t happen without the interview. But we decided to keep working and visit
some interested people. We went to visit this one guy. But we took a wrong turn
without realizing it and got kinda lost (I’m still learning the area guys). But
we decided to visit the interested person who lived where we got lost. By
miracle, we found a super interested person who has been looking for the truth
but said he didn’t know where to find it (familiar?). So we had a great lesson
on the restoration and he’s super excited to read the Book of Mormon and find
the truth for himself. Afterwards, it was time to go home, but we decided to
take a small detour to walk by Tia Vera’s corner. By another miracle, she was
there! She had actually just arrived. We were able to do the interview and
she’s all cleared for baptism this Sunday. Afterwards we got some overpriced
Açaí, and went home. Que. dia.
On Wednesday I woke up to a missed call at midnight from
some Elders. I called them back and asked what happened. Turns out their carbon
monoxide sensor went off and they had to leave the house. They called the fire
department, who said “If the alarm goes off again, call us back.” and then hung
up in their face. Nothing ended up happening, thankfully, and in joking with
the elders afterward, they send me an audio which sent my flying. So freaking
funny. I’ll attach it below we went early to the chapel to finish the division.
Afterwards it was just work work work. Fun work but work nonetheless. I
standardized the method of contacting referrals in the mission. The method has
not launched yet because it isn’t perfect and we will have the media sisters
give training on it at zone conferences. It’s the method I’ve used for about
800 referrals that I’ve contacted, and the method that only blocked me from
WhatsApp once. So if anyone out there would like to try it out, I can send it
to you.
On Thursday we went to the airport again to resolve some
legal questions for some foreign missionaries. There we had lunch at a slightly
overpriced restaurant, but its ok because it will be reimbursed. There I got to
see Elder Hernandez again since he had to resolve some immigration stuff. I
also got to meet Elder Vivas, a fellow pedant (a word for a person who knows
what pedantic means). We had a super cool conversation about grammar. In the
afternoon It was just normal work, and in the night we had a sick lesson with
Vinicius on how to use gospel library.
On Friday we woke up super surprised that it was Friday.
Also woke up to a photo of the most destroyed phone I’ve seen. So during the
night one of the sisters in the mission stepped on her phone and absolutely
destroyed the screen. So I had to resolve that. It’ll be fine. We had lunch
with a sister in the ward from Venezuela, and, as promised, I gave the lunch
message in Spanish. It was pretty cool. More office work and in the night we
contacted referrals. Some good potential in a lot of them, we will see how it
goes this next week.
Tender Mercy:
Today marks the first full month of using my new goal
spreadsheet. This means my monthly summary is complete. I was surprised at how
far I was from reaching some goals, and how well I achieved others. Although I
achieved just a few of them, I felt really amazing as I made plans for this
next month. It was a moment where I was able to feel the power of the atonement
working in my life in a way that is personal to me. This next month of February
will be amazing.
Spiritual Thought: I thought I’d share the lunch message
that I shared yesterday. I decided it would be a cool idea too write a new
verse too a well known song. I chose “I Feel my Savior’s Love”. I wrote the new
verse about covenants:
Yo siento Su amor,
un convenio yo he hecho.
Él nunca me dejará.
Ni a Él le dejaré yo
The Love that God has for us is eternal and everlasting. But
His love is much more special for his covenant people. Those who have made a
covenant with Him have access to His love. I invite you to read this article
that President Nelson wrote about this love.
The Everlasting Covenant
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/liahona/2022/10/04-the-everlasting-covenant?lang=eng
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