I have officially been in São Paulo for almost a month!! How
absolutely insane and crazy is that!?! And I am loving it! Last week was very
similar to the weeks before it, a lot of ups and downs, but for the most part
ups! It is really starting to crank up with the heat here. Haha it is killing
me. I am already starting to get a tan line on my collar, and I am in a
constant state of overheating. Haha it is nice though when it rains, those days
are the best by far.
Last week we had a great district meeting where we practiced
inspired questions. We had practiced this in Bozeman and I love it so much!
When we were practicing I felt such peace and calm, the first time I felt
confident practicing with our district full of brazilians and veteran
missionaries who all speak fluently. It´s funny that I was most confident in
going into a practice having no idea what I was going to say because I was
going to completely listen to the Spirit on what to say. it was awesome to see
that the questions we asked and the things we said were exactly what the
missionaries needed for the investigators they were role playing as. It was
great!
I also had another blessing last week. I GOT PEANUT BUTTER!
Haha it is called creme de amendoim here and really isnt the same but it is
very close! They dont sell it anywhere but we found it in this one market place
and I absolutely was in heaven having peanut butter this last week.
Haha last week we had a rough start because we had a super
hot day and our appointments fell through, things just werent going our way and
we werent feeling too great about it. It is hard when you dont see many results
after working so incredibly hard! But then the next day we had a huge blessing:
it absolutely poured all day long!!! So then the bigger blessing that day: we
taught so many people and found two new investigators! The new investigators
thing was big because we had decided that we needed to take a leap of faith and
stop teaching some of our investigators. The reason we are doing this is
because we are teaching a couple people who are not keeping committments and
just dont have a desire to learn more or do the things to learn more, which is
hard because you really grow to love these people when teaching them and so it
is so hard to see them not do the things that you know lead to happiness
eternally. But we felt we needed to demonstrate our faith by trying to find new
people who are being prepared by God to hear our message and live the Gospel.
So on the day it was pouring, Wednesday, we taught a couple new people, passed
by a contacts house and committed him to be baptized, and also tried to find a
referral, but knocked on a door across the street to ask where the house number
was we were looking for. This older lady told us the person had moved a while
ago, but she accepted us into her house for a message and absolutely loved it!
She lives just with her mom who is... 102 YEARS OLD! haha it is crazy, she cant
hear really or see very well so she just sits there and smiles at us and tell
us´´vai com Deus´´ a lot. Haha but the woman, Maria, we told her about the Plan
of Salvation and that her family can be an eternal family, and she loved it.
Well we didnt really have a lot of time but we returned yesterday and it turns
out she had read the whole pamphlet we left her, and then called her daughter
and read her the whole thing, to which her daughter said she needed to talk
with us and learn more about this religion and how families can live togther forever.
And we committed Maria to be baptized! It was so cool to see that we were led
to this family and other people being prepared, even if it took a lot of
walkign around and other things to find them!
The rest of the week it felt like we walked so much! Haha
thank goodness for running, I remember all the crazy workouts I have done and
all of a sudden walking isnt so bad! Funny story, we have daylight savings ehre
as well, and in district meeting the zone leaders told us to change our clocks
ahead one hour friday night for Saturday. So that was rough waking up at what
felt like 5:30 when it was 6:30, but we did it. Well that day seriously all our
appointments fell through. Appointments we felt like were for sure going to
happen. Fast forward to 7 pm and we were going to an appointment with the great
family who came to church last week and we were waiting to go with a member of
the ward. We were waiting for him and getting nervous at more and more time
went by and it was 7:10. We called and it turns out we and the zone leaders
were wrong... day light savings didn't start until Sunday!! Haha we felt so
incredibly dumb. Our appointment fell through because we were an hour early.
Haha it was seriously the biggest smack on the head. I laughed so hard when I found
out because of how tired I was from that day. But it was cool to see because
when we had not had those appointments we actually got to contact a lot of
people we needed to talk to and would not have been able to if we were at other
places, so even in our mistake we were blessed. Haha but seriously, it was so
painfully funny.
That family that is so great is still so great! We found out
they arent married which pushes back hope for them getting baptized soon,
marriage here is pretty expensive and no one does it. Seriously like no one
here is married, it just isnt as much a cultural thing like it is in theh US,
but it was so cool to see that they both feel like they need to be baptized and so they are going to get married as soon as possible, like in a week or two so
they can then be baptized. I love teaching them and it is cool to see that s
they feel the spirit and their testimonies start to grow marriage is now
important to them and they naturally want to do it so they can enjoy the
blessings of baptism and eternal marriage.
It was so awesome hearing how great everyone's week was,
happy belated birthday mom!! I am so glad you got my letter in time for your
birthday, haha i was praying so hard it would get to you! Also, this is to all
the world: MY LITTLE BROTHER BRADLEY IS A STUD!!!!!!!!!! Haha great work
BooBoo!
Love you all!
Elder Carney
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