(Elder Mackrory)
Opa tropa ta mais um email aí dando sopa
Espero que consigam ver a graça no ritmo dessa introdução.
Pois eh. Vi 9 fuscas essa semana, trazendo o total aos 1360,5.
Last pday we took it slowly, and hung around the house. I
made a raspberry-lime cheesecake for district council. I did some dishes and
laundry and somehow managed to procrastinate writing my email.
On Tuesday we had district council and I brought my
raspberry lime cheesecake which everybody loved. The only thing that didn’t go
perfectly was the crust, which lacked butter and was therefore crumbly. After
the council, a friend of ours Fabio came to church to see how it all works. We
taught the first principles of the gospel, and he accepted our baptism invite.
We did a reverse day from what is normal and did our online work in the
afternoon and did visits at night.
On Wednesday we did some visits in the farthest neighborhood
in our area after eating lunch in the mall. Afterwards we went to the chapel
for seminary, and beforehand while calling referrals, Carol responded and told
us how she had been taught by the missionaries before, she’s been reading the
book of Mormon and want to be baptized and go to the temple. So there’s that.
We marked a lesson with her for the next day, because our friends had arrived.
With Luciano and Ruby with the help of the bishop we had a super spiritual
lesson about the restoration. If they are ready, we hope to invite them to
baptism this week. During this, our friend Jorge was interviewed for baptism
and passed! Super crazy miracle about this. Afterwards we had some call
lessons. One with Jessica, who is also super interested in being baptized, but
she lives outside the mission in a super inconvenient spot that makes it easier
for her to get a bus ride to our ward than to her ward. We will see about the
situation.
On Thursday morning we called our friend Carol back, with
the help of sister Barbara. She was so kind to Carol and helped her feel
welcome and ready to come to church on Sunday. She was so kind as to invite
Carol to have lunch with her the next day, which was the day we would be there
too! After the call, we marked to meet with her that evening in the chapel, and
invited a sister in the ward who lives on her same street. Unfortunately she
was working, so to make the lesson work, we called up Luciano and Ruby again
and they were able to participate in the lesson. Not members (yet), but at
least we weren’t alone. We taught the plan of salvation, and it went really
well despite some hiccups.
On Friday, we had lunch with Barbara, her family, and Carol.
It was super good. Carol is feeling super welcome in the ward, which was one of
her worries about coming. We went to go visit Joao on the complete opposite
side of the area, who ended up canceling on us. That’s ok, there’s never too
little online work to do.
On Saturday, we had a super cool lesson with Fabio, with a
less active member we’re helping out. Super cool, and how they’re friends. We
helped out with soccer that night, But we had to dip early to go to the family
night marked by the sister who lived on the same street as Carol. Naturally,
she asked us to invite Carol. We had a super good discussion about the
restoration and the Book of Mormon, and she’s super excited about the Gospel
Library.
On Sunday we had Jorge’s baptism, and some 6 of our friends
came! Afterwards we had lunch at Nubia’s house, and were kinda stuck there the
entire day because it was also Elder Amorim’s goodbye party since we are pretty
sure he’s leaving.
Overall, it was a pretty full week. As I wrote, I went back
like four or five times just because I forgot about a really important event.
Tender Mercy: Jorge was going to be baptized because we was
supposed to switch jobs to free him up on Sundays. Come the interview, he
passed, but said that some people at his current job left, and so now as a
manager, he’s kinda stuck there. After some prayer and fasting, he spoke to his
usually pretty stern boss, who told the first employee in the history of the
company to take sundays off. Jorge told us Sundays off was never an option,
never even a thought, and his boss just him he could have it. Prayer and
Fasting really work.
Spiritual thought: I learned this week the two different Portuguese
words that mean “blessed”. One (abençoado) means simply blessed, having
blessings received. The other (bendito) has a higher meaning. Beyond its
meaning of blessed, it means someone who reciprocates those blessings to others
and someone who is grateful for such blessings. For example, 10 lepers were
abençoados. Only 1 was bendito. Whenever the scriptures wish to imply more than
simple blessing, they use bendito or its verb, bendizer. May we always strive
to be the part of God’s people that is more than abençoada, but bendita as
well.
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