October 22, 2013

Email 10-21-13

OH hey! 
This week was good.
We lost a day going to Aldeota for an appointment to get a refill on my meds. But other than that it was good! :)
I can’t remember if I said last week or not but we got a reference two weeks ago to go visit a less active member. We got there and started teaching him and he left to go get his cousin.  We have been teaching his cousin ever since and have his Baptism marked for Saturday.   He is super duper excited!
We were over at his house doing kind of a pre-interview lesson to make sure we taught him everything, and he started talking about his uncle and how he works next door, and above his work lives three Africans that speak English.  YES!  We finished the lesson and we went over to talk to them.  We knock on the door and this guy comes down with the biggest smile on his face.  We asked him if he spoke English and he said no. But there is someone there that does. We didn’t have a lot of time so we marked an appointment to pass by another day, and invited him to church.  He got so happy!  He told us to pass by Sunday morning to get him and he’d be ready!  This was on Saturday.  We went back to pick them up.  We stopped by our new friends house too see if he was ready to go!   He was!!   Ha ha ha it was so awesome.  He went to church and loved it and wants to learn everything.  We gave him a Book of Mormon and invited him to read the part we marked.  He said he would read all of it and pray and go to church every week from now on. Turns out, he’s 30 and he’s been here in Brazil for three months.   He used to go to an Evangelical church in Africa, almost got baptized but decided to come here first.  He was looking for a church to go to and that’s when we showed up.
We stopped by Sunday afternoon to talk with the others that live there and they ate up every bit of information we gave them. We’ll go back on Sunday to actually teach the restoration and set some baptismal dates.
We were at a member’s house for lunch, and the people here are crazy about feeding the missionaries.  They always give the best of everything they have, and ALL of it.  We get there, just like any normal day and eat one plate, then another.  Just like every day  -  enough to make them happy but not enough to make you sick. Then the guy there said ``Elders, eat more.`` No, we’re full, we’re satisfied and he said ``ELDERS! EAT MORE!!``  And he took our plates and put a mountain on it.... I ate more at that house than I have ever eaten in one sitting in my lifetime..  My companion didn’t take it too well.   Right when we got home he threw up... a lot!    Ha ha ha
The Bishop texted us Saturday night ``inviting`` us to talk in church. Ha ha. That’s not a lot of time to prepare a talk in another language.  Good thing the gift of tongues exists.  I studied a little bit, got some topics written down and we went to church.  When I stood up for my turn, I felt the need to not talk about anything I wrote down and change it completely.  I don't know why, but I did.   It went really well though.   I hope it gets this ward excited about the work.
We also blessed the sacrament and everyone was giving me a hard time telling me I was going to mess up. Turns out my companion (Brazilian) messed up, and I didn't.   It was pretty funny afterwards when everyone told me congratulations.
I love this work and I’m so glad I’m here.   It is not easy.   But it’s great.
-Elder Kyler Blane Farr
PS:
All of the missionaries have phones, but in our other area it had been stolen, and they are from São Paulo and it takes forever to get here! 
I talked about baptism and the requirements for it.  And how our church is perfect. Ha ha
I sent that picture because it looks like I’m in a favella, Ghetto. It marks where I’m at :) ha ha ha ha not that it’s dangerous.   It’s just super super poor.   But that means the people are more humble.