Top o' the marnin' to ye/Shalom/Bom dia/Guten tag/however else not-American people say hello.
This week has been a pretty good one down here and there's more to come. Real quick update on the visa before I start though. Looks like they'll be holding off on it till after the world cup is over, so I'll be here at least a few more months. It's bitter sweet for me because I know now at least I won't be leaving out of the blue but it also means I won't be in Brazil for a bit. Oh well, "I'll go where you want me to go, dear Lord"
So this week has been pretty fun like I said. The first week in a new area is always a bit rough but now I'm over the hump and we're having some fun. A quick few stories are in order I guess.
So the first one was at this older lady's house named Sister Green (the house and the lady both are called that). She was making us lunch Thursday and when we got there all she had was a little 10" oven pizza for two Elders who can eat more than most Olympic athletes. We ate the pizza though without complaint and then she brought out dessert. She made 3 pies. All for the two of us, haha. We only manged to get 1 3/4 down but man they were good. We ate more pie than pizza! It was super good, we told her she should have just skipped the pizza so we could have had more room for the pie.
Saturday I did exchanges with our district leader. He's from Vietnam and is super hard to understand sometimes, but he's really cool. The cool thing was he has always only had sisters in his districts (his nick-name is the Relief Society president) so I was his first split ever! Victory! It was fun and we did a lot of good work together.
So you're all probably looking at that picture and are having 2 thoughts. 1). Man he makes a skirt look good and 2). Why does he have it? Well, There are a ton of Samoans in our ward and for some reason they get a kick out of giving us "pilongis" (white kids) them. I think they either are being nice or it's super funny to them, not really sure which. Anyway, made my day! I get why girls wear them skirts now, super comfortable. I'm still straight, just saying that we wear em' every chance we get now, haha. I always told my mom I wanted 6 things out of my mission:
1. Change some one's life (check)
2. Grow closer to God (check)
3. Wear man-skirts (check)
4. Sleep in a hammock (pending)
5. Forget English (pending)
6. Finish ( T-minus 14)
So I think I'm getting along pretty well, haha.
Okay, time to get for real though. I wasn't too sure what really to write about this morning but I feel like I've got a decent idea now. My mom said something pretty cool in a letter recently. She reminded me of Zion's camp in the days of the early church. For those of you who don't know Zion's camp was a band of men called to go assist the saints in Missouri in getting their land back from the mobs. They marched 900 miles from Kirtland to Missouri with almost no food, clean water or provisions and got there only to have the Lord tell them not to start a war. Many were frustrated and left the church because of it, but all of the 70's and most of the quorum of the 12 was called from that march. Why were they asked to do it? Joseph Smith offered a great answer. He said that they had to sacrifice to the same extent Abraham did. They had to show their commitment to God.
This morning I read a cool message from Alma 58 too along the same lines. It says:
34 Now we do not know the cause that the government does not grant us more strength; neither do those men who came up unto us know why we have not received greater strength.
The Nephites had been at war for a long time here and their resources are running thin. They didn't know at the time but the government was being overthrown while they were at war. Helaman wrote this letter in their great afflictions and fear of death because the Laminates had such greater recourses then them. But I love the two statements "We do not desire to murmur" and "It mattereth not, we trust God will deliver us nothwithstanding [our] weakness". That's real faith right there. I wish I could say I had that faith. Do you know how much I've complained or thought God wasn't being fair with me? I felt a little chastened to say in the least. So trust God. Let him lead you. Don't waste time trying to figure out what the end goal is, just do it. That's what made Nephi so great, that's what made the stripling warriors great, that is what makes Thomas S. Monson great and that is what makes missionaries and members great.
We'll be having a baptism Sunday so I'll have something cool to write about then! I hope you all have a good week and I'll write some more next week. "Don't sweat the petty things and don't sweat the petty things" (George Carlin)
-um no exercito de Deus
Elder Teela
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