Well, hello family. I am truly sorry that I have taken so long to write! I hope that the few photos that Sis. Lundgren has taken these passed few days have been enough to keep you guys happy. It´s just been suuuper crazy here in the office because the week of transfers and what not. Now I just hope I can remember to tell you all all the important and cool stuff that happened last week.
Alright, so last week was a week full of the same old stuff basically. Travelling to all sorts of government buildings to be sure all the documents for all the missionaries are good to go. This week was the week that I had to renew my visa. I renewed it Tuesday afternoon with Elder Goodsell. It was funny that we had to do it with only a month left in brasil, but now my passport is full of stickers, stamps, and dates. They even had to take our fingerprints and pictures and stuff. Now we are official to stay here another month and now we won´t have problems going through brasilian customs! lol.
Tuesday morning we also went to the American Embassy. Another visa waiter finally got called to get his american visa, so we had to drop him off there. I really wanted to go in because they have an american grocery store that has about everything and anything. But the security is tight there. We know a few members that work inside and we are going to have one of them get us in one of these days to eat lunch and buy some goodies for sure!
This week was a stressful week as well in Aguas Lindas. We had to get everything set for the new missionaries that are reopening the area. We had to finish buying everything a house needs and we had to be there Thursday morning/afternoon to let a guy in to build all the bunkbeds, desks, closets, etc. We were so tired that we just slept on the plastic covered mattress while he put everything together. Friday was another day we started at 4am. We took the last group of missionaries that are going home this transfer to the airport. It was a small group of 4, but one of them was E. Rogner, my old companheiro. He was always a good friend. Oh! One of the funny things that happened was when we were dropping them off at the terminal of Azul Airlines. As we know, we have connections with this specific airline and us missionaries don´t have to pay excess baggage. Well, one of the elders had a suitcase that was way over the limit. So we told the lady we are from the church and don´t pay. She started typing a few things and was like ´´I am not finding anything here...´´ In the meantime a guy next to us was listening and watching. Elder Nascimento said ´´where is the manager? I want to talk to the manager here.´´ And the guy listening jumped right up and went over to help her. He said ´´they are the mormons, just let them pass!´´ haha. I laughed so hard. The panic we bring to the employees there is hilarious because they know the CEO´s son is always with us and whatnot. Good times for sure :)
Saturday was suuuper awesome. We did two service projects. One before lunch and one after lunch. We pulled some weeds and cleaned the yard of the lady´s house we ate lunch at. And after lunch we helped two single ladies of the ward move out of there apartment. I wasn´t too thrilled with them because before we had got there they had shut all the drawers and cupboards with rope and tape without taking stuff out first. So everything was super super heavy. All my upper body muscles were sore afterwards. But it was super good to help them and they even bought popsicles for us afterwards. Score :)
Saturday night was way special. We had a ward activity called Festa Junina which looks a little like a thanksgiving/halloween type of festival combined. Before the activity we called all the people we have been teaching and have done contacts with these passed few weeks. We ended up having 8 investigators there with us! And tons of members where there with lots of delicious food. It was just a perfect activity and all the members are basically returned missionaries so they all greeted and talked to our investigators. It was amazing for our peeps.
And because of the activity we ended up having 5 investigators in church Sunday morning. We loved it. The gospel principles class was on keeping the Sabbath day holy and the other was on keeping the commandments. It was exactly what our investigators needed to hear. I was very pleased with church this week J
Sunday night we had to go to the mission office to resolve and finish all the things for the transfers and get all the numbers from all the missionaries for the transfer. And it was just a good experience to help and teach some of the missionaries… Because the picture missionaries have of us secretaries here on the mission is that we sit in the office all day drinking lemonade and eating apple pie. That was true in the past for some of the secretaries, but we have changed that. We use all of our precious teaching time to actually go out, find, and teach new people. People were super surprised to know that we have been working and doing our best here. And I honestly feel like the Lord is blessing us greatly for our efforts.
I will end by telling about Monday, because if I update you everything that has happened up until now, I won´t have anything to say. So Monday was our Celestial Zone activity, which means our zone had the most baptisms this last transfer. We started out by playing soccer like we always do. And we rented out one of those blow-up fighting things. Where there is 4 pedestals and you stand there with a giant Q-tip thing knocking each other off. It was a blast. We also played dodgeball and the brasilians didn´t stand a chance :) Elder Josephson made the teams and choose all of us americans on his because we know how to throw and use our arms, brasilians and hispanics only know how to use their feet! lol. We also had some mini pizzas for lunch and watched a movie, Zootopia, suuuper hilarious! And to end, we played some basketball. I felt like the mvp because I was just on fire! Lol. I could hear dad´s voice in the back of my head ´´take the rock to the hole!´´ haha. Awesome stuff J
Oh! Almost forgot. Monday night we had a family night marked with João and his cousin Vilani. Our two investigators that have baptismal date and went to church Sunday. Elder Nascimento had to stay at the office to finish up so stuff for the transfers Tuesday so I went out with one of the elders that was staying at our house, Elder Hayden Anderson. Haha! It was a blast. We passed by their house to get them and the whole time they were talking about how great church was and how they were planning on going to a party but after learning about the Sabbath they didn´t go. They looooved the church! And we taught the Restoration at the members’ house and it was just super spiritual. It was a great way to end a great night. I love you all, sorry this email took so long to send off but y´all know that I love you J have a great week and enjoy the pictures!
Com amor, Elder Patterson
No comments:
Post a Comment