(Elder Mackrory)
Boa tarde galera! como vai?
Essa semana vi 6 fuscas, trazendo o total aos 1237 fuscas.
Last pday, we took it a little bit slower, spending some
time at home. We did however randomly meet up with some members from Montana,
who pulled their taxi over to say hi to us. Not much else happened, but in the
night we contacted some referrals and cleaned and filled the baptism font.
Sunday morning we got trolled. We had arranged with Tia Vera
to meet up with us so that we could walk together to church. When we arrived at
the arranged place, she wasn’t there. Then we got a message from one of the
bishopric saying that she was already at church like an hour early. Apparently
she was the first one there. Anyway, we had tons of tourists come visit our
ward and it was pretty cool. I chatted with some of them in the beginning, but
my conversation was cut short because we had so many friends show up that I
couldn’t talk with members. Good problem to have. Sacrament meeting ended and
we chatted some more with people. One of the tourist couples asked me to
translate for them. I think it went pretty well, but I sure missed a bunch. I
learned That Urim means Lights and Thumim means Perfection. I thought that that
was pretty cool. In talking with them after church, I found out that they were
part of the Tabernacle Choir. After Sunday school, it was a rush to make final
preparations for the baptism. We started the meeting and Tia Vera could not
stop smiling and giggling. We had her baptism and I was so happy to see how
well the members just loved her. It was a great experience all around.
Afterwards we had lunch at bishops house and his 5 year old daughter kept
showing me all her pokemon. It was the cutest thing. I made a terrible dad
joke, Elder Ribeiro shared a message and we left. We then had a few hours of
work, finding three people who have lots of potential. We almost marked a
baptism date with one of them. That night we had a super cool family night with
the young single adults. The whole goal was to integrate Rafael with the rest
of them and it worked really well.
On Monday the transfer news came out. At 8am we all got on
the zoom, president explained for the umpteenth time that leadership in the
church isn’t like a ladder, and then we watched people climb up the ladder.
Just kidding. But I became a great grandfather and gained one more grandson and
my oldest is a zone leader. So proud. I’m staying in my area with Elder
Ribeiro, and now the work gets crazy busy. We arranged all the logistics for
travel and Elder Ribeiro got on buying bus tickets. Just that about 40% through
the purchases, the site stopped working. So we were praying pretty hard for
this to be fixed so that people can be transferred. At night we arranged a
lesson with a friend of ours, that he canceled literally at the last minute
because he wanted to go to church. So we asked if we could meet him there. So I
went in the Assembléia de Deus. Lot of yelling going on there, but their hymns
are pretty cool. Then we walked home at a pretty unsafe hour and got home
safely.
On Tuesday we left early to the office early so that Elder
Ribeiro could buy the rest of the tickets. And, by a miracle, it worked! In the
meantime I did some referrals and some other tasks. Afterwords we had district
council and more work to get the transfer ready. After we got lunch we finished
up the arrangements and we left for a lesson. It looked like a 20 minute walk,
so we started off, but when I went to check the route, it said it would take 45
minutes and walking straight to the top of a mountain. So we called an Uber.
Arriving at the house number, we were expecting a house, as one does. Nope,
turns out the number we got was to the biggest base of the baddest branch of
the Rio police. Their logo is a skull with a knife driven through it and cross
way pistols behind. Its pretty sick. So we sent the guy a message, like “Uhhhh,
are you sure this is your house?” And he said “Oh, no this is my work, come on
in”. So we start to enter this military base that has the sign “Do not make
suspicious movements”. The dude meets us there and we had a great conversation
about the Book of Mormon and he is excited to read it. Then he asked if we had
anywhere else to go, and when we explained the next lesson and where it was, he
said “Oh that will take you forever, there’s a shortcut through the base. Come
with me.” So we went, and let me tell you I’ve never seen so many guns in my
life. It was chill. Then we left the base on the other side, had a great lesson
and went to the pizza night. Rodrigo from the bishopric hosts a family night
with the missionaries right before the transfer to say goodbye to any
missionary that is leaving. Cool conversations.
On Wednesday we had transfers. So we went early to the
office again to fix some things. I tried without success to transfer some
photos from a broken phone to a micro SD card, but it didn’t work, so that will
be a priority. I got back almost all the stuff I was supposed to, except the
phone of one elder who claimed his phone was “lost” or “stolen” when it came
time at the airport to give it back to president. Oh well. Everyone arrived for
transfers, got to see a whole bunch of people and see Elder Flores get his
first trainee, my first grandson. In talking with the current Elders from
Saracuruna, Sheila is a crazy active member that you can’t tell is a recent
convert. She’s helping the missionaries a ton. That made me so happy to hear.
Afterwards, everybody left, we cleaned the chapel and did some more logistics
as we finalized the transfer.
On Thursday morning, we again left home early, this time to
president's house for the mission leadership council. We had a super good group
again this time, and so there were lots of good ideas going around on how we
can better lead the mission. I got to see Elder Kjar again, which was cool, and
it was fun to dink around with Elder Patterson at lunch. Good times. We took
some good photos, including one of the most broken phone screen I've ever seen.
Apparently, it fell. On Wednesday night I had received a fully functioning A25,
and so my obligation was that this lucky elder got it. So now we're back to
just A13's. After getting back to the office, I reorganized everything and put
my filing cabinet next to my desk because I'm sick of having to walk a full 20
feet in air conditioning to go get something. Lots of people are having
whatsapp problems, so I spent most of my time helping them.
On Friday, we kinda had a big mess. It was super hot out,
and we went to deliver some copies of the Book of Mormon with some friends, and
then to lunch. Lunch was super good, some of the best beef I’ve ever had. After
lunch we headed back to the office. Lots of good work done. At 6ish pm we had a
pizza family night with a recent convert who we haven’t been able to
successfully teach for a while. So, we play some uno and eat some pizza, and
then after the second game we start to deal cards again and she kinda just
starts going off. Rude comments, straight up insults and that everything that’s
going wrong in her life is because of me. Anyway after an hour of this, she
grabbed her purse and stormed out. Then we went home. Super mentally draining,
especially since the entire hour was “It’s not you guys, it’s him”. But, today
is pday, and we’re going to the temple, so it’s gonna be alright. Hate to leave
my weekly summary on a sour note, but its how my week ended.
Tender mercy, after pday, we were preparing some things for
the baptism, and I realized that ALL of the information that we needed for Tia
Vera’s baptism form was missing. We had gotten all the information we needed,
and then it just disappeared. This information we got in one night where she
told us the information. When the information was lost, I got really stressed.
I had no idea where the information went, and there was no apparent way to get
it back. So I took a deep breath, said a prayer, and went in to try to see what
I could remember. I was able to remember every single detail. Not a single bit
of what Tia Vera told us was unclear. This information was shown to me one time
for like 5 seconds as I typed it in. This was not me. This was the Holy Spirit
helping me remember all that was necessary.
Spiritual thought: This morning for my personal study, I
read some chapters from the teachings of Joseph F. Smith. I read about having
no malice to anyone and yielding to the promptings of the Holy Ghost. But those
chapters are not what I wanted to focus on. It’s the very fact that these
chapters exist. I didn’t choose to study these chapters by need, I’m following
a goal to read all the “Teachings of Presidents of the Church”. I’ve been
studying them at a pretty regular rate. It just so happened (it was definitely
the will of the Lord) that these chapters were next chapters in the list by
coincidence (tender mercy). The Lord provides for our needs if we are looking
for His help. We must also be open to do what is necessary. I was very worried
about Friday nights’ situation, and looking for guidance. What I read what
exactly what I needed. And the guidance you are seeking is right there. God
wants to give it to you. You just have to look for it and accept it.
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