At Samantha's baptism, complete family.
Hi Guys!
Sounds like the week abroad was extre,mely busy! I loved hearing abouit the adventures in California, and in that good ol small town especially. I love that place. Good times are always in store.
Sounds like the week abroad was extre,mely busy! I loved hearing abouit the adventures in California, and in that good ol small town especially. I love that place. Good times are always in store.
This week too has been crazy, so Ill get to the beef of it!
Friday night, we had a ward party. I loved it! It was a blast! It was kinda like a Caraval tyoe thing with games and lots of food and some dancing presentations. It was so fun, I completely lost track of time, and we left there at 10:25! Whoops. But we did a tug of war, Elder Harris and I vs. four young men from the ward. Totally dominated them!
More nerve racking, Samantha said she wanted to wait for baptism, and her mother agreed. They wanted her dad to baptize her, in a few months when he can. I don't have any idea what we said, but I just followed the Spirit. I have had to do that a lot lately, having no idea what to do, and just putting my faith in the Lord, and hoping it'll work out. In the end, she accepted to be baptized Saturday! I even "baptized" Elder Harris right in the middle of the ward party to get her more comfortable, more excited about the idea. It was pretty funny, and the ward seemed to enjoy it as well. He's a big kid so I was a lil scared!
We also had a ton of members bring friends there, so we will have some more people to teach! Yes! This area has been tough. Real tough.
Saturday night we had the baptism, and it went so well! I loved so much seeing this family together afterwards, they were so happy! Reminded me of how great my job is, even with all the stress and sacrifice, its a pretty nice gig. I love this family!
Sunday, we went and visited a referral we got from the site. It was the nicest house I've seen in brasil i think haha. Anyways, we started talking to this incredible family, and turns out the daughter (20) talked to a missionary on the airplane who was going to the MTC in Brasil. This lead me to ask why she was coming back from the states. Turns out she studies at OSU! She has not only heard of our hometown, but has been there! I almost cried of pure joy! NO ONE in Brasil has heard of Oregon! But also the little town? Whoa! Haha that family was extremely receptive, and seemed to really like the message. We are going to baptize them before the go to Oregon in four weeks so they can hang with you guys a bit :)
Yesterday I had an interesting experience... I was doing an interview for a baptism in another area. The interview was going well, and right around question three, the baby she was holding started to cry. This lady immediately started breast feeding her child. This startled me, haha, as she made no effort to cover herself or anything like that. I just laughed to myself and kept going. This is just another example of how completelty DIFFERENT the culture here is in Brasil. I'm so glad stuff like that doesnt happen very often in the States, hahaha
Well, that one time we almost got robbed . . . We were walking down the street, and a guy ran up to us and started screaming "get on the ground! get on the ground!" I didn't really have a desire to do this, and was not really intimidated by this small man, so kept walking. However, my companion was grabbed by the man and so I came back really fast. We were able to talk the guy into letting us go because we were just missionaries and were poor. He was a lil unbelieving, but with the stare of power and authority of God peering into his eyes, he ran off. Pretty crazy!
Well, like I said, the area hasn't been picking up as much as I would like. We are trying, working really hard, but its taking some time. We did a 48-hour division with the LZs to get some stuff going in our area, and had absolutely zero success. A lil frustrating. I have learned a lot from the song "Where can I turn for peace." I used to associate this song with when people suffer big things, death, big disappointments, sins, tragedies or stuff like that. But this week I realized that the song, or rather Jesus Christ, covers our everyday stresses too. That the peace from daily stresses also comes from faith in the Lord, and knowing that he knows your heart, he knows your desires, and will bless you with the things you need to get through, vencer. I am grateful for the hymns, and for the great blessings I have received already. Well, I love you all! Sorry this letter is lame, but I guess you'll have to deal with it!
Love you all, Elder Jake
