Boa tarde todo mundo!
(Good afternoon everybody)
At least I think it´ll be afternoon when most of you get this... time zones make it hard to think of these things, ha ha (If you be in another country you know what I´m talking about). Anyway this week was better than worse you could say, we got some hammocks that are pretty legit but we can´t use them for now because we have no way to hang them.... but I will one day! It is a goal in my mission to sleep in one for at least a transfer (6 weeks). I think most people don´t have goals like that but ´tou nem ai (I don´t care), this is Brasil, ha ha.
So had some funny little mis-haps this week. We were in district meeting and Elder Kinny wanted us to makes some lines for a game, but instead of saying lines (desfilas, which actually means parades) he was saying that he wanted ten daughters (dez filhas). I know that it looks different but really they almost sound the same. We spent about 5 mins trying to help him get it right and laughing and finally he got it right but then went right back to saying wrong. He gets it now.... I think.
Also we had some eventful nights. We were all sleeping Friday when one of our weak beds broke. We had a bunk bed on one side and a single on the other with me and Elder Kinney on the ground with mattresses in the middle. The single collapsed in the middle of the night and broke so he joined us on the ground. The other Elder sleeps on top of the bunk beds so on one really uses the one below. For some reason he wanted to put the mattress from the lower bunk under his so that he and 2 mattresses. Not sure why, but he did. Anyway, we took it out and gave it to him and the other Elder ascended and got in bed, but the bunk started swaying a ton and creaking when he got up there, so we all thought it would fall, so you can guess the result. It fell around 4:30 in the morning. I woke up to here just this *creek creek creek.... CCCRRREEEEEEEEKKKK* andBOOM! (yeah, this warrants change of text) That bed fell almost exactly in front of the other and shattered the one on bottom into pieces. We all then woke up and were a bit freaked out, laughed a bit and then fell back asleep. We were all fine, just the bed was busted.
So on a bit more spiritual side both of the people who were baptized last week were confirmed which was awesome. We weren´t sure the 12-year-old would make it because he would be in another city with his dad but they both hopped on the train and surprised us at the front of the church just before classes started. His dad isn´t a member and we don´t really know if he is interested but this is the second week in a row he´s come to church for more than 1 hour, so we think he might have some potential there. He just lives in another city so we´ll have to pass him off. When we confirmed the 2 of them I got to confirm the son but I´m pretty sure that other than the required words it made little to no sense in Portuguese, ha ha. What can I say? It´s the second blessing I´ve given in the language, so there´s still a bit of a learning curve.
We went on exchanges too which was pretty fun. I got to know an Elder Gomez a bit better. He´s pretty awesome, we have identical personalities, so we are pretty much bros. We went to the home of their baptismal dates that they had there, 3 kids in a family that wasn´t completely baptized yet, and I guess I was the first American they knew, ha ha. They were all a bit blown away and wanted to find me on Facebook, ha ha. People here just seem to love us, ha ha.
We also gave an American history thing Friday night at an English school a member works at. It was pretty chill and the kids liked it. It was fun and we got a mountain of contacts, so that was pretty sweet.
So to be spiritual this week I´ll talk a little about the refiner´s fire. We were teaching this woman who we sadly need to drop now. She swore earlier that she would be baptized but the road to repentance proved a little harder than she thought. A lot of people today look for a quick easy fix `easy salvation` you could say. But wanting that is overlooking the entire point of why we are here. To GROW. If salvation were easy and God just saved us with a snap of the his fingers then we wouldn´t change at all. Many people focus on the fact that the atonement is paid and forget that it was actually an investment. The garden, the cross and the tomb were just the start of everything, not the end. We still need to grow and change and USE the atonement that Christ gave us. That´s why we can´t just sit back and be saved, we need to be a part of the process. Yes, we can´t really save ourselves through our works, but by our works we can become more like God and more ready for the life to come. But like iron that doesn´t bend unless heated and beaten we must endure the pain to get any gain, so changing hurts. I mean it really hurts. I´ve gone through a few less-than-comfortable changes in my life and I look forward to more because I know that I am happier and stronger because of it, that God has big plans in store for me.
That´s about it for this week, hope you all have a good one!
-Um no exército de Deus
Elder Teela
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