Dallin's Michigan Mission Blog: February 13

So, this week was pretty crazy. I have a lot to write about especially with two more days to write about.

First thing. We had a baptism. Adriana. She has a friend who took her to church at another ward in our stake, and she converted really quickly. She said that the idea of an eternal family got her super interested, then she prayed about the Book of Mormon. We met her my first week here, and she got baptized on Saturday. What makes it cool is that she was a reference from a member from another ward who was baptized without much time for the ward to prepare. Anyway, there's another girl who was going to church with her boyfriend in another ward. We had spoken with her because she wanted to get baptized in her boyfriend's ward, but she lives in our ward boundaries. It caused a lot of problems. The two bishops needed to speak, then they needed to talk to their stake presidents, then they stake presidents with our mission president who would take it up the the area presidency. Anyway, she called today wanting to get baptized here. Turns out her boyfriend was a jerk and woke up one day, just not feeling anything else for her and dumped her. She was already really excited to be baptized, but she doesn't care if it's in her boyfriend's ward anymore. Saturday this week, we have another baptism to get all set up.

Okay, next big story. We were walking on the street and some guy asked us if we carry the word to others. I wasn't in the mood to be sarcastic and pull out my bible and read a single word to him, so I just said that we do. He said "OK, there's a lady here who needs your help. Her husband just died and she needs to hear the word." I told him to take us to her, and when we showed up, there were a bunch of other people, all somber, in front of the house, so I figured that it was some kind of open-house mourning thing. As I stepped in front of the door, it opened up, and a lady came out bawling. She ran over to another lady who was on the phone. As she left the front door, I looked inside, and noticed there was a body laying on the floor. That completed destroyed my open-house theory. It turns out that he had died about 15 minutes before we got there. Anyway, after she talked on the phone with some other people, then passed out, we sat her on a chair and gave her some water. While she was there, I went and kneeled down in front of her (I'm not sure why I kneeled, it just felt awkward standing over her) and explained to her that we were messengers of Jesus Christ and that we would like to share a message with her to try and help her find a little peace. We explained the plan of salvation; left a copy of the Book of Mormon with her, telling her that if she ever needed to find some peace, to read; then we left her with a prayer. While we were speaking with her, she was trying to respond, but was so panicked that she forgot to breathe between sentences. After the prayer, she was much more calm. She managed to stand up and go inside to start cleaning up before the family showed up. After that, I never saw her again, but I think we were able to help her find a little more peace in that moment.

That same day, we had a problem with a maggot infestation out back by our washing machine. There was an awful smell of rotten meat, but we couldn't find anything. We just swept up all of the maggots, threw down some alcohol, burned them all, then mopped the floor with every cleaning material we had in our house; bleach, floor cleaner, laundry soap, dish soap, and mouth wash (for a minty smell).

So, it was Carnival this weekend. Tuesday was the last of this 5-day holiday. Usually, all of the parades and stuff happen in the center of Sao Paulo, or near the beach. Anyway, on the main road of our neighborhood, just up the road about 30 ft. from our house, everyone was throwing a huge party with lots of "funk" and alcohol and marijuana. We swung by our house around 6:00 pm to get some water, and as we were on our front porch watching, about 5 police SUVs flew up our road, throwing tear gas grenades out the window. Everyone took off running and the police got out of their cars with shotguns, MP5s, riot shields, etc. and cuffed a few people. Then, for the next hour, no one was allowed through that road, so we just stuck around in our house watching everything go down. While we were watching, about 5 more police cars, 8 motorcycle cops, a mobile station, and a helicopter showed up. Alright, so this sounds crazy right? I never heard a single gunshot or anyone police yelling or anything. And the worst is that when we came home around 9:00, the partying was back in the street about 5 times worse than it was earlier, and the police never showed up again. We figure the police just wanted to scare everyone early so they could all enjoy the last night of Carnival too.

Front room with Porch