Where am I?

August 11, 2014

            Today was a tragically comedic p-day.  SB and I went to the chapel to do our emailing and about 5 minutes after settling ourselves we heard this TERRIBLE howling dying animal noise.  I ended up searching the church.  When I opened the sunbeam room ad scruffy old dog jetted out as fast as possible.  We were then hit by a wall of thick pee/poop/dirty-dog-stink.  We quickly let the dog out of the building and he tried to go poop outside for about ten minutes. The poor thing had been locked up for about 24 hours.  I’ll bet you can guess how we started out our p-day…yup scrubbing dog mess off the church floor.  He destroyed the trash can, ripped the light switch cover off the wall, and chewed the door  and walls to death.  I had to call the bishop of the other ward because this was one of his member’s dogs. 

            When we finally got to our emailing it took 100 years for SB’s pictures to upload. After lunch we were planning on going to a rainforest park that is nearby.  Field trips are something that we very rarely do in our mission.  We wore even wore our jeans so that we could hike a bit.  (mine were quite a bit tighter than the last time I wore them and SB are quite a bit looser…)  When we got there, the gates were closed with a sign that was hand written saying they were closed on Mondays.  Nooooooooo.  We went to boring plan B which was grocery shopping where we waited in the check out line for 45 minutes.  Basically it was a wasted p-day dang it. But I did finish one of my application essays and wrote a couple of letters. 

            Tonight we went to P. and A.’s  house where SB had to act as a marriage counselor.  She summed it up well when she said, “I really don’t think that I am qualified to give marriage counsel since I haven’t even touched a boy in over a year.”

August 12, 2014

            We taught R. with J. today.  He is having a hard time keeping commitments especially reading and studying between visits. So I gave him an analogy to help motivate him to do what we were asking.  I told him, “If you were taking a hard course and knew that you had an exam in a month would you wait until the night before the exam to begin studying?  Of course not.  We are all here preparing for the moment when we will stand before the Lord.  How should we prepare for that?  Should we wait until the last minute to repent?  That is why our invitations to you are so important, because they will help you to be prepared to stand before God so that you can return to live in His presence.”……We’ll see if it sunk in at all. 

            (SIDE NOTE:  He cam to church this Sunday and had read the entire assignment we left for him!!!  #progress.)

August 14, 2014

            Time sure has gone by fast.  We are in divisions with the Cumorim sisters. Divisions are great, but they are stressful. SB and I are always wiped out afterwards.  On top of our own problems that we can’t figure out, we have to hear and give counsel to help the sisters we supervise with their unsolvable problems.  It is just a lot to take in at times. I am learning to pray and develop more love and compassion for these hard working sisters.

            Funny story- We were coming back from Cumorim and had to go o the bus station “alvorada”.  We got on a bus that said “**” bus station and asked if it was going to Alvrada.  A man nodded yes, and we got on. It was a particularly cold day, but in the bus it was very cozy and warm. SB and I ended up both falling asleep, expecting to wake up when a bunch of people got off at the bus station…only that wen I woke up, we were in a tunnel.  What?...we don’t have a tunnel in our area! We don’t even have one in our ZONE!  I quickly asked where the bus was headed and it was going to a station in “Novo Rio”, which is NOT even remotely close to our area.  We got off in “Bom Sucesso” and made the circuitous route back to our home.  Needless to say it was a LOT of time wasted.  But you know, B and I are learning to laugh at ourselves really easily and hey, we got a good nap!

August 15, 2014

             Wow, time is flying by…so fast…so, so fast. Today was kind of a flop.  We wen to the island, but no one was home or opened the door for us, so that was a bummer because we usually have really good success there. Then we tried contacting some of the bishops referrals (side note: We are starting to win our bishop over! J)  Unfortunately those were failures and we just ended up on our feet a lot longer.  The highlight of the day was that the wonderful Joanna, a future sister missionary, wen out with us today.  She is hilarious and just really upbeat and nice. We lover her and her family. They are definitely one of the families that is more excited about missionary work here. We taught R. (who is a 23 year old referral that we have taught a few times).  He has a slight learning disability so we have to explain things several times before he really understands it. He has sincere intent, but it is hard for him to read and study in between lessons.

             We have these 9 apartment buildings in a row that lie smack dab in the middle of Rio das Pedras. (side note: I learned this week that “River of Rocks” is slang for “River of Crack” – which gives you an idea of what this favela is like.)  Anyway, these apartment are quite nice and we have several members and investigators that live there.  Only often times they are not home so we have gotten into the habit of chatting it up with the doormen.  We have always shared a little gospel message with them and now we have one who is reading the Book of Mormon, and another who is coming to our English class.

            Funny Story: We saw a lady chasing after her beautiful female dog YELLING at the top of her lungs “They have already impregnated her!”, as she kicked at a crowd of male dogs chasing after her.  She was so distraught and angry but it was just so comical.  It is hard to describe the scene, but we got a good laugh.

Makes any day better!

August 16, 2014

            We did a church tour with some of our English class students and it was one of the best tours I have given.  They asked a lot of questions about the Book of Mormon, what we believe, etc.  It was a very positive interaction.  We worked in our area of concentration today and it was GREAT!  We stopped by our PMA’s house and it turns out that their neighbor was baptized a long time ago and went to church from ages 8-15! She went inactive after she moved and now she has 2 children and a nice husband.  We talked with her a little bit. She was very nice and receptive. We are going there on Tuesday with our ward mission leader and his wife.  It’s gonna be great!

Cute little girl happily washed dishes during our entire visit with her Mom.

August 17, 2014

             We had a great day today. We successfully marked visits with some of our members. We just have to start having them get more involved in missionary work.  Sometimes you just have to hold members hand and give them lots of pats on the back to get them started.  R. came to church today! Yay!  And he read the Book of Mormon too. We have a great lesson with him, hi mom, and a 23 year old recent convert of 1.3 years.  Great things are happening. SB and I were evaluating our numbers from the past 5 weeks and almost every single key indicator has been gradually increasing which is really gratifying because sometimes we just feel like we aren’t even making a difference.  We’re fairly convinced that we have one of the best ward mission leaders ever.  (okay, Carlos and Rosangela are the best, but it is close.)  Andre and Giselle are so willing and excited to help us, and we would do anything to help them.  It’s really nice to have such a positive relationship.