Hi guys!
This week has been super crazy, but they have been that way for a while, so in reality, this week was normal. I have reallly no idea what to write actually.
Well, Thursday we went to Santos, about an hour away, for zone conference. Zone conference, as usual, was way good! We spent a lot of time talking about focusing on men and families. We talked a lot about the role of the father, and a focusing on him, and inviting him to lead the family in prayer and things. Pretty good, learned some good stuff.
Thursday night we had an interesting lesson. It just fell flat. It was with the youth, the guys who come to play soccer. The non-members agreed to hear a lesson before every game. anyway, that lesson, about the Gospel (faith, repentace, baptism, the gift of the holy ghost, and enduring to the end) went horribly! They were not at all interested, and it kinda fell flat. I was pretty discouraged. But we talked with the 2nd couselor in the bishopric, who was in the class, and we made some goals and stuff to improve our teaching. we appproached that class all wrong. They are a super rowdy bunch, and so we were trying to be serious, so that they would calm down, and realize the importance of the message, but in realitity, they just tuned out. So we did some practicing, got some ideas from the couselor on how to be more interactive, more exciting, and harness that energy to somethin productive. we will do our best. I hope we can improve a bit, we need it!
Well Sunday was a really rushed day. We had two baptisms, at two different times! Cluadio was baptized right after church. He is Carlo's lil bro, who was baptized two weeks ago. Their sister was also baptized, the week before we combined areas. Right now, just the mom isnt a member. The dad is super inactive, but he came to the baptism! A lil sign of progress. We are also teaching their cousins, who will proly be baptized in a few weeks. Legitimate family.
When I baptized Caudio (15), the water was quite cold, so I tried to get him in and out a lil quicker than normal. However, when he hit the water, he seemed to climb up my arm and didnt go all the way under, so we got to try again :) His family seems to like to try two or three times, they all were like that haha
But after that baptism, we helped the Branch president with tithing, and member records, then went all he way into Ocian, another area entirely to eat lunch with a family the stake president sent to attend, and help with the branch. After the bbq, we went back for the baptism of Alex, the young man I told you all about last week. He was late, because his mom told ushe had gone back to get Isaias, the 32 yr old guy who lives with him. Lil kids a stud. But they were all there and the baptism went well. He had to be baptized at night so everyone could be there, just like Claudio had to be be in the afternoon so his father could be there. Then we sang and helped out with the choir, preparing for the branch conference in two weeks. Finally, we got to do a lil proseliting, at about 8, to teach Sandro and Dani. It was a crazy day, and I really enjoyed it.
Sandro and Dani still havent done the paperwork, but we are trying to get them to do it, they are just so busy. shes going through finals this week, so hopeful, they can do it soon!
Beuno and Ericka and Bruna are doing good, but still havent accepted a baptismal date, but we will keep doing our best :)
Today, when we were doing some errands, we passed this man on the street walkin the other direction, screaming about the 2nd coming and that we need to be ready! Pretty normal for Sao Paulo, haha, so we didn't do anything. Then, later we passed him again, this time he was on the other side of the street than us, waving a book and screaming about two nations, two testaments. I could have swore that book looked like triple combination. Then, as we were eating lunch, he sat down out side the window where we were eating (i dont think he could see us though). I looked really closely at that book hed been waving around. It WAS the Book of Mormon, D&C and Pearl of Great Price! We quickly finished eating and ran outside to talk to him. He seemed suprised when he found out we were representatives of the church. He told us he didn't believe in the church, just that the BoM was the word of God, and that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and that he brought the preisthood back on the earth. However, like I said, he didn;t believe the church was true. Really odd. He said that the the church beleived that the Trinity was three seperate beings, and he knew, that it was one. Really interesting discussion we had with him, but his logic didn't really line up too well, so we ended it and moved on. Kinda strange that someone else is preaching on the street with the book of moron against the church. Haha what a weird guy.
Well, I gotta to go, Im trying to finally get some pictures to ya guys!
Love ya all, Ill have to write more next week!
Love, Elder jake
