Sunday, May 25, 2014

Ups & Downs 5/24/14

This week was just kind of different!! to start out, last saturday and sunday were good, we ended up having a good meeting at church! Elder Albuquerque spoke in Sacrament meeting and did a really good job, this ward is needing some good motivation and he did a really great job speaking about missionary work. So hopefully we will see some results! Then last week we had a little miracle in that we found more new investigators in one week than we have in all the previous weeks that I have been in this area!! It has been a little hard finding new ones when we have such limited time in our area each day, but we found some great families and it went well!

 One night we were just about returning home and we tried this referral that we got from Church Headquarters. Well she wasn´t home and we were walking and passed this woman who was walking with her dog. Well it was night and we kept walking when all of a sudden Elder Irineu said that we should talk to her and that maybe it was our referral! So we turn around, and start speed walking at this woman, something that we seriously try to avoid doing late a night to people we dont know!! Well she turned around at that exact moment, crossed over to our side of the street and started walking towards us. It was perfect!! 

Haha so we did a contact, she was super friendly and invited us to come and talk with her family anytime, and that was that. Well we went there on Sunday night and it was so cool, she lives there with her sister (both are in their late twenties or early thirties) and their mother. They were super receptive and we had a great lesson with them. Well we returned this week a day before our marked appointment with them (for reasons I will tell you later on in this email). We got there and this woman wasnt there but her sister and mom were. She greets us and one of the first things she says is that she was just really needing a prayer at that moment and that we were an answer to her prayer! So we went in, found out htat they had had a really not so great experience with some distant family who had said some really cruel things and that they were needing something to lift them up. Then we found out that the other daughter, the one from the contact, NEVER invited anyone from any religion to talk to her, least of all enter her house to teach a lesson. Apparently she is pretty bitter about religion and God, and so when we came the first time her sister was going to tell us to come back another time, but her she called out and said that she wanted to talk to us and hear what we have to say! So we found out it was a miracle that she even talked to us that night on the street, and even more so wanting us to come and teach her family! We felt really blessed to have found them and we really hope that they will progress and come to church! We have a lesson with them tonight so hopefully it will go well!

So on Monday and Tuesday we worked like crazy getting things in order and ready for the devotional with Elder Nelson on Wednesday! On Tuesday the zone that is farthest away from the capital (all elders and it is the only one farther away than my last area in Itapetininga) came to sleep here for the night. Well at 4:58 PM, two minutes before we close the office and email, we got this urgent email from President saying that the devotional was cancelled and that we needed to cancel all the transport and advise all the missionaries.

NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

It was so heartbreaking!!! It turns out that on Wednesday the Police here in São Paulo and 13 other states in Brasil were going on strike, as well as the buses here and the teachers. So there was going to be just chaos in the city and state here and the church and Elder Nelson were really worried about our safety and missionaries all traveling on that day so much. So they cancelled the meeting and also ordered all missionaries to stay inside their houses the entire day. It just killed me. So we scrambled and cancelled all the buses and vans we had ordered and went about advising everyone. So we worked for the rest of that day and bought food for lunch and everything for the next day. That morning President called us and told us we could go to the office since it was so close to our house and work there but atfter 5 we had to come back home and stay there. So we came here, but since we had done all our work the day before planning to not be in the office, we didnt have a lot to do. But that is ok! It was pretty boring, but I was able to study a lot and read some talks online. Haha so i was super bummed, but completely understand why they had to cancel it. The rest of the time here this week has been interesting, I found out that there are going to be some pretty big changes with the transition to President Farnes, I will have to do some things and have more responsibilities that right now Sister Martins does, so that will be interesting. And the church is changing the systems for a couple things that I do so I will get trained on that as well. Overall it will be pretty crazy !

Well besides that not much else happened this week, as always sorry about all of the typing and grammar mistakes, it is difficult to correct them when I have such limited time! 

Love you all!!

Elder Carney

No comments:

Post a Comment