(Elder Mackrory)
E aí Mac! Tem um a34 aí que ta dando sopa?
I get a variation of this message above at least twice a
week. It usually comes from the same three or four elders telling me their
phone is too slow and they need an upgrade. It gets really old since a good
portion of them don’t actually have a problem, they just want a better phone. I
usually respond with “I’m good thanks, and how are you?” since they never ask
me how I am, and then stall to break the news that we don’t have any upgrade to
give. Anyway let’s get rolling. I saw 4 fuscas this week, bringing the total to
1251.
On pday last, I spent a good two hours cleaning the house,
which was fun. We switched our teaching hours to the afternoon to teach Vera
(not to be confused with our recent convert Tia Vera) about the plan of
salvation in a public park. During the lesson a goose showed up out of nowhere
and stared directly at Elder Ribeiro for a good minute looking very docile and
dangerous at the same time. It then turned around, pooped, walked away, and the
lesson continued. Since we worked during the afternoon, we bought groceries in
the night.
Sunday was again a day of miracles. Perhaps I didn’t notice
as many this time, but there were some crazy miracles. In the morning, we left
to go pick up a friend of ours, Roberto, and on the way we made some last
minute calls to invite people to church or remind them that they accepted our
last invite. Roberto took us in his car as we went to church. At church, we
chatted a bit and sat down. As people started to arrive, we greeted them, and I
started to record who was there. When we sat down, a member of the bishopric
asked me to translate for an American family who arrived in the back. This
time, translating was pretty easy for me, and I got pretty much every word. It
was especially fun to translate Vinicius’ talk on repentance, which was super
good. One of the reasons he always like to talk with us before his baptism is
because we share the same perspective that repentance is joyful. Very few, he
said, have this perspective. His talk showed that he really understood the
concept. He didn’t say he knows repentance is joy because the scriptures say so
or because the missionaries said so, but because he lives repentance. He bore
powerful testimony of the atonement and the power of repentance. After
sacrament I looked around real quick to finish counting those of our friends
who came. They totaled nine. That’s a new record for me. Thing is, that would
be super stressful sometimes, but this ward is awesome and all of our friends
went to go sit with the members. After church, the other Elderes had a baptism
of their friend Erick, who’s awesome. After church, we had lunch with like two
or three member families and another friend who decided she wanted to eat with
us. She was excited to tell us that she is ready for baptism and is preparing.
She lives in the other Elders’ area, so her progress will be accompanied by
them. After church we went to visit Colmar from last Sunday’s miracle and were
able to give him a book of Mormon and invite him to church. That night the
young single adults did a devotional with fried pastries. Our two friends went
and they had a good time.
On Monday we had our normal meeting with president and
everybody, and then we had tapiocas. Pretty uneventful day, but in the night we
went to teach Tia Vera about the plan of salvation. I brought my little drawing
that I made like a year ago to help her visualize, and she asked if we could
print out a copy for her.
So on Tuesday morning I got right to work on that and
supersized the font and made everything a bit easier to see. We had district
council and did not sing “Love one another”, which broke our streak of singing
that song for the last like nine weeks as far as I know. We then went to lunch
(walking) with 110° and 80% humidity which made it feel like 140°. Not the most
enjoyable half hour of my life, nor the driest.
On Wednesday morning we taught Vinicius about the plan of
salvation and the importance of enduring to the end. We had lunch at a member’s
house who is and old friend of Vera, who we taught on Saturday. She had just
gotten back from a trip in Europe, and so she gave us some really nice
chocolate. That night we had a lesson with Marcel in which we found out that
the fast we did from Saturday to Sunday worked. He has made a huge step to
being ready for baptism, and one that I was beginning to think wasn’t possible.
But the Lord had other plans in mind.
On Thursday we went to the airport to re-legalize Elder
Smith who was robbed like a year ago and got his ID card taken. There, while we
waited for them to show up, we taught Isaque about the plan of salvation. After
the airport, I stopped by a candy shop and got some peculiar shaped gum and
gummies. That night, I had a great personal study, reading Jacob 5 and eating
some grapes. I thought it was so neat that I was eating grapes AND reading
Jacob 5, until it dawned on me that Jacob 5 is about olive trees and not grape
trees. Then I felt pretty dumb. But the grapes were good.
On Friday we had our long awaited hamburger night with Dani,
which had been postponed like 5 times. Burgers were super good, and the Coke
was super cold. We then re-taught her the plan of salvation.
On Saturday, we did not have pday. That’s why you didn’t get
an email from me. We switched it because today is zone pday and we’re having
churrasco. I’ll let you know how it went this Saturday. We invited tons of
people to stake conference since we would need to invite more to get the same
number of people at church given the farther distance of the chapel. We taught
Jose and Maria (not that Jose and Maria) about the restoration and they loved
it.
On Sunday morning it was a rush to organize rides for
everyone who was going. Marcel and Rafael got rides together, and we went in a
taxi with Colmar, who we taught last Sunday. Vera got a ride with the goated
Relief Society president. It was such a good conference with some amazing
talks, and Vinicius gave the opening prayer. Afterwards we went home and I made
myself some pancakes and we then left for the farthest neighborhood in our
area, to visit someone. We were just gonna give her a book of Mormon and invite
her to read and to come to church, but then she asked, “So how to I get
baptized?” And so we explained it all and marked her baptism date. We then went
home amidst a premature carnival celebration (here, carnival means “sin”. I’m
not sure if that’s the definition, but its how it is usually understood). Lots
of root free root beer and outfits that are not even swimming pool appropriate.
Lots of glitter. My companion and I commented about the quality of the ground
the entire way home.
Tender Mercy: At stake conference, Vera came up to us just
exploding with joy. I love seeing people happy, so it made me really happy.
That's it😁
Spiritual thought: you may have noticed that I taught the
plan of salvation quite a bit this week. I noticed that too. So I decided to
write a little about my favorite part: the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Because
of the Fall of man, all people are subject to sin and death. We cannot overcome
these things alone. Knowing this, Heavenly Father prepared a way for us to
overcome them. His plan centered on this part. For all, Jesus lived a perfect
without sin, suffered the pain of all sin, pain, affliction, and sickness. On
the cross He finished the suffering, paying the ultimate price which is death.
He did this not only to give us the opportunity to become better, but so that
he could comfort his people. On the third day, he gave all mankind, not only
the repentant, but all, the greatest gift that has ever been given. For having
risen from the dead, He made it possible for ALL to be resurrected. All of
God's children who have stepped on the earth will receive a perfect body at the
resurrection day. Now, all that said and done, what are you going to do to show
that you're grateful? What does He ask us to do?
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