Wednesday, July 21, 2010

"It was a really special experience, and the Spirit testified more than ever..."

Well done graffiti


Yoooo! So I would like to share a few initial thoughts about this new area. This keyboard is the worst yet, please forgive poor spelling!

1. Our ward mission leader looks like Ghandi, a lot
2. The members here really like missionaries, not just tolerate them.
3. There are recent converts here.
4. People go to the temple.
5. We live close to a huge supermarket.
6. The members are excited about the gospel.

Well that list turned out pretty unimpressive, but this area is the bomb. We have started from scratch, there were zero investigators here when I arrived. We have upped that number a bit, now we have a few investigators. It seems like the day is really short here! We have so much to do and so little time.
At church there were no investigators, but there should have been. People bail a lot, so we are going to involve the members a lot more, especially because they are so stoked to help us! It had been a while since I had seen anyone excited to help the missionaries in any way! But now it is just awesome.
There is a mom and daughter that were taught a year ago that are good friends of a mom and daughter in the ward here. We visited with the daughter, and she seemed pretty interested in the church, so we are going to try teaching them a lot. They would be really good members because they will have an incredible system of support. So we hope that continues.
Also we taught the friend of a returning-to-activity young man and his family. They seemed cool too, but they were not home on the return visit.
One really neat experience we had was yesterday. We went to the house of a less active woman who actually has a returned missionary son (there are returned missionaries here!!!) and a daughter who was married in the temple. So we got there and I asked her if she reads the Book of Mormon. She said that she doesn't really believe in the Book of Mormon, and that she only reads the Bible.
So we taught her about what the Book of Mormon is, why it is true, then answered a rather stunning question: "How do you do the Mormon prayer?" Apparently the missionaries that taught her 15 years ago were too quick and failed to teach her how to pray or teach her about the Word of Wisdom.
So we taught her to pray, and she said that she could feel the spirit a lot. We gave her a blessing to combat her depression, and left. It was a really special experience, and the spirit testified more than ever before to me that the Book of Mormon is true, the most true on earth.
Also in my district, there is a very new missionary. He is having a really hard time and carries a big hunting knife with him at all times. He has basically lost hope/desire to learn Portuguese.
If anyone prays, pray for this dude! There are two positive aspects of him being blessed: 1. He will be happy and bless the lives of others 2. He wont go nuts and stab all members of the district to death.
Love you all, sorry for the short email. This computer is low quality.
Joseph

P.S. There is a ton of really beautiful graffiti here, it has inspired me to start practicing in a notebook!

"But look how they treat us
Make us believers
We fight their battles
Then they decieve us
Tried to control us
They couldnt hold us
Cause we just move forward
Like Buffalo Soldiers"

A sign that is funny in a park


A nice cloud

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