Week 19

It´s been a crazy week for us down here. Especially since it´s been the week between Christmas (well, actually Natal since it´s not exactly the same as Christmas), and New Years. Natal basically carries over a little through this week. We had a zone meeting on Tuesday, and our zone leaders laid down some statistics for us showing us that our zone was only teaching about 0.3 lessons per hour on average. Our entire zone of 5 companionships. That was really embarrassing. Since I´m not very used to being the one talking, we hadn´t been making too many street contacts during the day; just walking from investigator to investigator hoping someone would let us in. Anyway, we set a goal to teach a minimum of 10 lessons per day. That means we needed to make a lot more... street contacts... oh no. Not my favorite when I´m still not speaking perfectly. Anyway, we´ve been doing a ton of talking to random new people, and lots of tracting. We´ve found a good handful of people who show interest and have said we can come back. That´s been pretty cool for us.

Anyway, some of these contacts happen very ``randomly.´´ We´ll be having a bad day, or not much success, and then something crazy happens and we find someone interested. Okay, so there´s no way it´s random, but it always catches us by surprise. One day, we just weren´t having any success, then we decided to knock on a few doors. We ran into this guy named Diego. He came out to talk to us at his gate instead of from the window or door. We talked with him for about 10 minutes about our message, and we gave him a Book of Mormon. He seemed excited to have a new interesting book to read. He said he liked to look for new wisdom in his life and I was like ``Wisdom huh? Here´s a pamphlet about something called `The Word of Wisdom.´ He took that, and was like ``You gave me a book, now I want to give you one.´´ Then he ran inside and got this tiny little pocket-sized book called `Minutes of Wisdom.´ Each page is a different thought. It´s actually really cool. Anyway, then his ex-wife and kid came to the front door, and she showed even more interest in our message. There was a point where, after asking lots of questions, she asked ``Hmmm... what more can I ask about?´´ And we got all excited and I shot out tithing and aught her about tithing really quick. And on New Years Eve, we went to an investigators house to invite her to church the next day. She happened to be there which was a miracle already. Then she invited us inside after we invited her to church. As we were there, some guy came out of the living room and Aline (the investigator) asked him to sit down and here a quick word from the Elders. We felt like we should read really quick about the Anti-Nephi-Lehis and how their story can relate to us. Then after we ended, another guy came in, and straight up asked us if he could have a Book of Mormon. We gladly handed it over and he said he´d start reading that night! Too bad he doesn´t live in our area. Anyway, I quickly told the story of the 2,000 sons of Helaman, and the first guy was like ``That´s in there? I want one too!´´ So we gave him one, and he said to come over any time. It´s been such a cool week with things like that.

One day, we were walking home and noticed a group of kids our age kind of giggling and looking at us. Then one kind of said just loud enough for us to hear ``I wonder if they speak Português.´´ So we snatched the opportunity and said yes. They kind of stopped and we walked over to them. They started asking questions and stuff about us and where we´re from. They got all excited when they found out we´re Americans. We talked a lot about the mission: what, why, for how long, etc. We were just waiting for them to ask about what we taught. Eventually one did and we (I believe) threw in the Restoration lesson really quickly and smoothly. Boom. Anyway, one added me to facebook from her phone and some of them looked like they were gonna pee themselves because of how cool they thought it was to talk with Americans their age that seemed (mostly) normal. Anyway, we hope we left them with a good impression of the Elders.

Yesterday, about 10 minutes before church the bishop asked if I could fill in a gap of about 10 minutes and give a talk on prayer. I have to say, it was really good. I spent as much time as I could preparing, and the Holy Ghost filled in the rest for me. I found about 2 scriptures and remembered a few personal stories on prayer and laid down a solid talk. When I first got up there, I was a little nervous since we had 2 wards meeting at the same time to clear up any confusion about the ward split, but after about 30 seconds when I started getting some help, I forgot all about it.

Anwyay, we´ve been doing a lot of tracting, making contacts, and just working hard. It´s been an awesome week. I´ll send some pictures finally. One is from Elder Davis´ camera, but the other is from mine. I finally broke down and bought one.

Just kidding, I got 3 packages from you guys in the mail today. The ties/camera, the books/truffles, and the binder from the ward.

Also, I´m glad to hear that Rylee seems to like Star Wars. That´s pretty cool. Hello Kitty and Star Wars. Good combo for a little 6-year-old girl.

Anyway, have another good week. Good luck with Senior Project Dallin/mom and dad. It´s super lame, or as Elder Davis would say ``Sub-optimal.´´




Elder Candland

Here are a couple of us. Also, I really like the tie you guys sent me. The one I´m wearing.

This is the bathroom. It´s much better than the last, but still strange. It´s all half a step lower than the rest of the house. 

 This is our kitchen/diningroom.

This is the front of the house. It´s a good one.

Here´s a picture of a few zones from here on Christmas. I got this in the mail from the office.