Haha well this week was certainly interesting!!! One thing was the weather! Last Thursday a record was broken here in Itapêtininga! The hottest it has ever been recorded! It was 40°C here... which was 104°F. Haha and super humid. Basically I died. BUT, it was also a super good day and we are working super hard. This week was the most productive we have had of the transfer and we are teaching a lot more. I think a lot of it was due to Elder Noleto´s feet getting better. Poor guy, his feet have been seriously thrashed these last couple weeks, he basically didn't walk ever before his mission and now he is walking a ton. With an Elder who ran a ton before the mission and doesn't really understand super well that feeling of having feet demolished with blisters. But he is getting better and I am trying to be sensitive to the pain that he is going through.And prayers are being answered in him getting better and more accustomed to having to walk everywhere. Sister Martins was talking with me while my comp was in an interview with President and she said she would tell anyone that walking and getting in shape is just as important as preparing spiritually before the mission. I know that is true! We cant teach if we don't have the Spirit with us but we also can't teach if we are stuck in one place not being able to walk! Haha so preparation is a good thing both spiritually and physically! We had really been praying for this one family who came to church last week, Marta, Alfonso, Matheus, and Julia, they are so great! Unfortunately they had a ton of questions about what we believe after coming to church and some members told them some things that aren't important or relevant to them right now. So we had to spend a lot of time answering questions and helping them with their doubts. They didn't come to church yesterday which killed me but Matheus did alone! He has attended seminary these last two weeks, loves it, but is now struggling because he doesn't want to continue alone. So we have a lesson tonight with him and I am praying so so hard that he will have the courage to continue and that his family will have their hearts touched by the Spirit. We can try as hard as we can to convince them to change and continue learning, but only God can change their hearts through the influence of the Holy Ghost.
We also had splits this last week with our Zone Leaders, that was super fun , splits seriously bring miracles! We worked in an area that is really rich that day and usually it is kind of hard to work there, but we taught like crazy and found so many new potential investigators, it was a serious miracle. And it was super fun as well, splits are great, I was with Elder D Santos who is going home this transfer and has a lot of experience and I learned a lot of what I can now apply to help my comp and our district do what we want to do (baptize and help these people come unto Christ).
Like I said we had interviews with President these last week, we have them every three months, and it went well! I learned a lot from him and it was good, haha like I said he is very similar to Mr Carpenter and so you have to be very very careful with how you say things and be very direct and clear in saying things to him, haha it was interesting but also very edifying and I learned a lot of how I can help my investigators with their specific challenges.
Oh and it actually rained this last week as well! So even though it was crazy hot it also rained a ton and then got hot and then rained a ton so I have been very very grateful for those little breaks! Now we are just focusing a lot on working through ex investigators, potential investigator lists, and less actives to find new investigators. We stopped teaching most of our investigators because they weren't progressing and so we had to start over from scratch, but we are seeing miracles happen. Including one less active who basically has a super crazy hard life now and decided that God doesn't exist or if so then he just wants to spite her. So that was hard to hear, but in the way we found her it was very much so from guidance from God and she recognizes now that we were sent from God to help her. Unfortunately we cannot help her with finances or raising her children alone, or selling her house, but we have focused so much that if she reads the Book of Mormon, prays and goes to church, she will receive more blessings than she can handle, most of them spiritual, which really are the ones that matter, but others that are temporal as well. It has been humbling to see her situation, and we actually found her on a day that had been really difficult and no one was listening, and so when we found her it was a blessing for us to realize that when we ask for help from God, he gives us opportunities to help other people which in turn is a blessing for us. She read the part we marked, first time she read in years, and after saying she would never read again, we were able to bear testimony and promise her specific blessings as representatives of Christ and she had a change of heart and said she would try to do those three things. It has been really good to see her make small changes in her life. Overall a great week!
Yes mom, I do get letters sometimes from friends which is so great!! I actually need to write a few to catch up, I got one package from Christmas with the small stockings, and my comps feet are doing better! And I am doing great! Love you all!
Elder Carney
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