Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Dear Family type people who still live off in the desert way far away,
How are y’all? I’m doing pretty good. Our lunch with members fell 4 times last week, so I ate a lot of Ramen noodles.
So what did you think of the pictures? I hope Mom shared them. Kidding, Mom. Let’s begin from January 20, 2010 and just see what all I did since then.
Jan. 20- PDay
After p day ended we had a family home evening with Elcy, a lady we are teaching and was going to be baptized on the 22nd. She is a golden investigator. Easy day.
Jan 21- Thursday
Weekly planning, and lunch fell. We had the interview for Elcy tonight, so I went on a division with our Zone Leaders and I worked with Elder Dos Santos who was the Assistant to the President last transfer. I learned a lot in a small space of time. It was amazing. We had to reschedule Elcy’s baptism to next week.
Jan 22- Friday
We went to Ana Paula’s house in the morning and helped her prepare for all the last minute stuff like the interview and all that. Fun. Then lunch fell in all three possibilities. The calendar they have for us is slightly confusing, so nobody really knows what's going on. (Don’t worry, we have already sorted everything out.) After, we went and got our 2 week allowance. We really needed it.
Jan. 23- Saturday
Lunch fell again. Today was a contacting day because we are basically baptizing our entire teaching pool next week. It’s going to be so awesome! A wedding and four baptisms, (all adults, not little kids!), in one night. It wasn’t too successful, and I forget why. . . I think something came up with wedding paperwork or something and we had to run everywhere. We taught Fabio and his wife Suelen (two of the four) about the day of the Lord and little things afterwards. Fabio usually has a lot of questions, especially doctrine wise. Not in a Bible bashing sense, he just really wants to know. The hardest thing with most investigators here is that nobody seems to understand that the LDS church is the only one with AUTHORITY to baptize. Some people understand practically everything and have the faith in Jesus Christ and believe in the First Vision. . . but they just can’t understand that the church was taken for a while from the earth along with the authority(Priesthood). It is so annoying the circles we can get into because of this. One day I will have a beat all answer to this dilemma.
Jan. 24- Sunday
Lunch fell again. It is Sunday. We can’t buy food. Thankfully the night before we bought food just in case this happened! We went to the baptism of another couple of elders in my district. They didn’t clean out the font, so the water was a little dirty.. . eww…
Today wasn’t a very productive day. The manual says Sundays, weekends and holidays are the best days to proselyte because everyone is home. It is opposite here. Every one is home. But everyone is drunk. This = problems. It’s getting easier to find the right people, though. Just got to keep praying to be led.
Jan 25- Monday
Went to Ana Paula’s really fast. After, we had our “transferrly” interview with President Jayme. It feels like while other people are in there they take forever, but when it is your turn you sit down, have a first prayer, say hi, then have a second prayer. But then you go out and other people say that you were in there forever. It is so weird. President Jayme is a really funny guy, too. And very understanding of lots of things.
After, I had a 24 Hour Division with our Zone Leaders again. I stayed with Elder Dos Santos in our area for a long time until this morning because.. I will explain later. Anyway, was my first day of pretty much speaking just Portuguese. Wow… Somehow I can understand so much more now. It’s weird because sometimes while I think, the Portuguese word comes to my head first. Not often, but enough that I notice.
Jan 26- Tuesday (Division)
We basically had a good day today. Went lots of places. Until… We had a problem with the paperwork for the wedding and we had a document that needed Ana Paula and Joseneire’s signatures, and also the two witnesses. We were running all over the place, and then we had to wait for Ana Paula to get home from work way late at night. I was so tired! It's all good now, though.
Jan 27- Wednesday –PDAY!
Hey, this is today! We went and played soccer again from about 7-11 this morning. I am totally out of it right now. After, we went to the lan house to send email. After, we only have one lesson scheduled and then Fabio’s and Suelem’s interview. I am scared that we are going to have another division, because they are starting to kind of eat my money for bus rides back and forth and all the time wasted just in traveling. But yeah, that was my week.
I found a good talk in the book Because He First Loved Us by Pres. Eyring. It's called Witnesses for God, 5 October, 1996. There is a part in there about Sacrament Meeting and what a testimony is and isn’t. I really want to show that to a few people, but I only have it in English, so.. haha.
It rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains and rains a lot.
Let Sam P know that he doesn’t really need to bring a rain coat. I haven’t even used mine yet. If it is raining harder than what an umbrella can cover, then usually we just stay inside.
Well, I am almost out of time on my computer here. I don’t want to pay more money right now.
I got about 15-20 letters from the Zone Leaders during this past week. It's all from December. I think the most recent was from Ally. Maybe Dad's from after the new year.
Who won the bowl between BYU and whatever that other team was? In December?
Hope you are all doing good! Love y’all!
Elder Tenney tEnney teNney tenNey tennEy tenneY
Say hi to Olivia for me. And you can send photos in envelopes. That is what puts a smile on this missionary’s face.
