This week was a pretty good one.
One of the ladies that we have been teaching for two weeks or so, she plays a big part in her church actually (The Evangelical church) Anyways, we have been focusing a lot on prayer, she really has the desire to know for herself it these things are true or not. She has a super busy life though. She just separated from her husband and has two kids at home. But she’s awesome. She is one of the first people that I have taught here that have real questions about the Gospel. She is super intelligent. Anyways, we took a member with us to teach because he just got home from his mission, and was an assistant. He is on fire!! He basically took over everything and she agrees to come to church with us. One thing about the people in Brazil are, they are all super nice and they don’t want to offend us. So they agree to do things and don’t have the intention of fulfilling it. So, after she agreed I was hopeful that she would go, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up too much. So, we went to her house Sunday morning, with faith! We walked up to her door, which was open, and she was sitting there in a dress just waiting for us to arrive. She gave us a hard time for being late and we left. We got to the church and showed her the chapel. She sat down then me and my companion ran upstairs to tell the bishop we had an investigator there. He told EVERYONE. Everybody in that building welcomed her there. And a sister from the ward sat by her and showed her how to use the hymn book. It was one of the greatest feelings on my mission. Knowing that we work our butts off, not for nothing. I have been working for three months to get an investigator to go to church in this ward. (because we have two.) And it paid off. The members are so awesome!
() was confirmed and was feeling super nervous and when the Bishop announced his name he didn´t want to go. He just sat there and put his head down with embarrassment. Three of the young men that were going to pass the sacrament came back and helped him get up there, giving him encouragement the whole way. These are three young men that were baptized about a year ago. They live in the favela, and out of their families, they are the only members. They go to church 45 minutes early to make sure the chapel is clean, get the sacrament ready, and welcome the members. And today actually, they left for the Temple. They will ride a bus for 12 hours to get there, spend a week there, going every day. Then Saturday, they´ll ride 12 more hours to return. I remember when I was growing up, thinking it was sooo long to go to Snowflake to the Temple and how early we had to wake up. That is nothing compared to what these people here do. The faith they have is incredible.
This week we had a lack of water in our whole neighborhood. The owner of our house has a well so they gave us a few buckets to shower with! Ha ha ha. With the challenges we are given, they don´t even matter because of the blessings I am witnessing in my own life, and the lives of the people here.
I was looking in sacrament meeting yesterday at the people I had the opportunity of teaching and baptizing. They are all firm in the church. What a great feeling is it to have been able to help these wonderful people experience the joy that I have from this Gospel. It wasn´t me that did it though. We all know if was the Holy Ghost testifying of the truth.
I hope everyone had a wonderful week, and make the next one good too.
-Elder Kyler Blane Farr
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HA HA HA HA HA it gets hotter here every day.. Cold literally does not exist.
And that pic is to show the pants that I came here with. I was using the first belt loop when I came.. Now I’m on the fifth, almost the sixth. Ha ha ha
have a wonderful week.
I hope you have fun!
Love you guys
I´ll be sure to eat some extra baião for you. Ha ha.
and feijoada. You can look those up if you want, and panelada. That´s the best one.
(Portuguese must have a lot of slang in it or google is dumb because according to google , ‘he’s going to be eating a panful of ugly balloons, or a panful of balloon bean stew or a panful of bean stew while listening to a ballad!!! ha ha ha :) Tune in next week to find out what he was really eating!!!) Actually, this letter goes out to some former Brazilian missionaries….. tell us -- what did he eat?
feijoada - ugly, bean stew
baiao - ballad, balloon
panelada – panful also -- how do you spell "happy birthday" and "we love you" in Portuguese? I looked it up in google translate but after the above translations, I'm a little scared to trust it!!!
