March 10, 2014

Hi all,

Answers to questions:

This week, my baptism of Manuel fell through because he was sick. He looked normal to me and my comp. Sooo yeah...we rescheduled for next Saturday but the Lord is awesome. We found out that he was sick and as we were walking back from his house to church, we received a phone call from the sisters. A boy we have been teaching named vanjilson showed up at church with his parents. His parents finally agreed to let him be baptized. So, we did have a baptism this Sunday. It was truly a miracle.

 

You asked if I had received any of your packages yet...I have received no packages as of yet. What goodies should i be expecting? We haven't moved yet but we have secured another apartment. It's much bigger. The downside it still only has one bathroom. My mission prez, he is Brazilian, significantly shorter than me, and he says that he loves and worries about me.

 

For breakfast, i normally eat a piece of fruit and a hard boiled egg or 2. In the scriptures, i am studying several things - the Book of Mormon reading it through, missionary work as found in the D&C, and the pride cycle - why people are lifted up in pride, and how to avoid it.

 

Miracles? well the baptism of vanjilson, my language skills. I can understand almost everything now. and this week my comp told me that i now know enough Portuguese to get by and i need to study/work on my pronunciation because and i quote my comp, "people don't understand you because your Portuguese sounds weird." I don't talk like a Brazilian...who would have thought :).

 

This week, I had an interesting experience. So my comp, the DL, decided that we were going to do splits with the two new missionaries in the district - him with the trainer (elder Borges) and me with the greenie (elder Beserra). That way my comp could teach elder Borges how to work because as my comp said, "I'm not going to have a fubeca in my district." A fubeca is a slacker missionary. In Portuguese, fubeca translates to `stress` as in it causes the leaders of the mission and church stress. Of course, that left me and Elder Beserra to do the work in my area. So, we have one missionary that doesn't speak very good Portuguese but knows the lessons and how to teach and the other that knows Portuguese but doesn't know the lessons or how to teach. It was interesting to say the least and i don't think that we taught false doctrine so I'm going to call that a win.

 

It hasn't rained in the last 2 weeks so I'm hopeful that the rainy season is over (of course even as i write this i think that i might have jinxed myself). Remember that the field is white already to harvest. The scripture doesn't say that its white in Mexico, or Brazil, or Utah. The field (everywhere) you go is white and ready to harvest. When you thrust in your sickle with your might, when you give some effort to helping this work go forward, the Lord promised that you will lay up in store or have success and thereby bring their soul to God and your own. Just some food for thought about missionary work.

elder Brett Wilson