HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!! We are wearing the socks right now. :) And Mom, EVERYONE wears socks with sandals down here. It's ok!
Everything is going great!! A lot of progress was made this week. No
baptisms as of yet, but everything is great. New president, who I will meet on
Thursday. I got Andy’s letter today, and I got a little freaked out with the
pictures of Josh as a little man, with the hair of a little girl. ;)
hahaha I’m doing so great. I’m happy and
fat and healthy. Today we went into a store of the army, with a bunch of knives
and bb guns (they cant have guns here, so everyone freaks out over bb guns and
pocket knives. They’re all really cheap, like what we get when we turn 8.
everyone gets shocked when I tell them about our adventures.) They had a
butterfly knife, and when I saw it, I asked him if I could see it. He pulled it
out for me, and I remembered the hours I spent trying to learn it, and cutting
my self 32 times in one day learning, and how i got super good. I sat there
thinking ´I’m going to show these Brazilians how it’s done. Then something in
me said ´you idiot. You haven’t touched one for over a year, and you know Satan
will grab that knife out of the air and it will fall and stab your foot´ so I
gave it back to the man. I think it was the spirit talking to me.
Week of June 27th-July 3rd, 2016
(27) SEGUNDA
(Monday): Today was pretty sad for
me. We got a call from Thiago saying
that his mother Simara had returned to smoking.
She had been smoking 2 per day, and we cut it down to one to finish it
off and yesterday she had fought with Marcos, who has managed to stop. She smoked 9.
Marcos has been 4 days now with out smoking and he says when he thinks about the cigarette he gets a
disgusting feeling. WOOT WOOT! But we went there after p-day and we had a
very good message with Simara and Marcos.
I gave them all the hymns in English to listen to in the house. Next p-day I’ll print a big picture of the
temple and another of Christ for them to put up in their house.
Simara
started crying, talking about how much she wants to stop smoking and be baptized. That she honestly is trying. We 4 are going to do a fast for her tomorrow
after lunch. W e also gave her a blessing.
I have no doubt that she’ll get it.
They’re still reading and watching videos and Mormon messages that I
left them. Today was day 356 of my
mission.
(28) TERCA (Tuesday): We did a division today, and I went to
Palmeiras with Elder Gutierrez. In
Panambi after the district meeting we picked a ton of tangerines behind the
church. The ones on the bottom had
already been picked, so I climbed the tree, standing on a thin branch to bend
it into the reach of Gutierrez on the ground and reaching for the higher
ones. In about 5 minutes we filled 3 big
sacks.
The division went well. Their
house is above the chapel, and the secretary had left the TV out, so at night
we watched some Mormon messages I have on the pen drive. Today was day 357 of my mission.
(29) QUARTA
(Wednesday): Today I returned to
Cruz Alta. A lot fell through today, but
we found an awesome new family, who loved the Plan of Salvation and asked us to
come back tomorrow! Ha-ha WOOT
WOOT! Their names are Luciara and Elson,
and they have an 11-year-old daughter.
I’m pretty excited about hem.
I forgot to
write about a contact yesterday. We
knocked on the door, and the woman came out and said, “I know you guys, you’re
the Mormons.” We said yes and explained
a little of our message. She said, “And
you guys don’t keep the 10 commandments.”
We said, “Um, yes we do.” She
said, “No you don’t. You only keep 2 of them.”
She then went on to explain how the Lord’s day is on Saturday as it was
in the time of Mosies (Jake’s spelling) That
the law of Mosies is still in effect, so those who don’t keep it are
sinners. I didn’t tell her that the law
of Mosies also includes keeping the 7th month, and every 7th
year. Not that anyone who lit a fire or
cooked food on the Sabbath was put to death..
We tried to explain why Sunday is the Sabbath, but it’s hard because in
Portuguese the word for Saturday is the same as Sabbath. We showed scriptures showing how the Apostles
held the sacrament and meetings on Sunday after Christ’s resurrection, but she
wanting nothing of the truth.
There was
another person in the house behind her, and several times she would say
something that’s in the scriptures then turn around and ask the person the
reference or what it said, or some date for when some pastor Catholic changed
the bible . Then she would say,
“See. I know these things. I study.”
We just bore our testimonies of her wrongness and left. Today was day 358 of my mission.
(30) QUINTA
(Thursday): We finally were able to
meet with a family today that we have been trying to meet with for weeks
now. Carlos and Regina are the parents,
and their 16-year-old daughter, Ester.
THEY ARE AMAZING! They all paid
close attention and they loved the idea of eternal families. They had a lot of questions, and they made us
late for the next lesson. But it was incredible. Carlos loved it all, and said everything was
new for him. He’s never thought about prophets
or apostles as necessary. He asked for
more, and we gave him the church’s site.
They invited us to eat with them after, but we had to go. They marked for next Wednesday, and told us
not to mark any other commitments because they want to make Churrasco for
us. WOOT WOOT!
I’m super
excited about his family, and I could write a few more pages about them, but
I’m super tired and have a huge headache since this morning because when I
flushed the toilet I got a huge shock.
(I forgot to turn off the breaker.
There’s a short in the wall or something. Tomorrow I’m going to call the secretary
about it.) But all is well, and we’re
happy.
Also! We passed by Simara and Marcos today! The fast and the blessing worked! Marcos is now 5 days without smoking, and
Simara has smoked 2 in the last 3 days.
This si a miracles!! They’ll go
do all the marriage stuff this week also!
It’s one miracles after another with them. Today she asked about forgiveness, and how
it’s hard to forgive. She asked if she was
required to forgive the 3 men who killed her brother-in-law, sister, and 7 year
old nephew. I guess her Brother-in-law,
sister and nephew lived in the USA, Nebraska.
In 2010, a man who worked for her bro-in-law was stealing from him, so
he fired him. A few weeks later the man
knocked on his door with 2 other men.
They pulled him out of the house and killed him with a baseball bat.
Then grabbed his wife and child, and hung them, then threw the three in the
river, All involved were Brazilian. The
police caught them because one grabbed his bankcards and was using all the
money. When the card got cancelled, he
got mad and fought with the cashier, which called the police when they came to
the store. This Brazilian who understood
no English taught he was being arrested or the murder, and told
everything. He’s in jail for 20 years,
the other in jail for life, and the third escaped back to Brazil and is a free
man. Simara learned all of this one day
when she saw her sister’s picture on the news.
How do you
explain to her that she should forgive?
It was a spiritual lesson, talking about forgiveness. She said, “I’ll work on forgiving them, after
I quit smoking. I’ll overcome one sin at
a time.”
Today was
day 359 of my mission.
(1) SEXTA (Friday): Today was very good, and I want to share it
all. Our first lesson was right after
lunch with an old lady named Maria. A
very old lady, but she was probably the happiest person I’ve ever met. The next lesson was the opposite. This lady was miserable it seemed. Her house was filthy, and very, very
sad. I made a goal to always look at the
good things. Getting to know the old
lady, she ONLY talked about how good everything was, hoe beautiful everything
was. The other talked only of her
sicknesses, the bad weather, broken TV; only negative.
We also
passed by the house of Nathaniel. His
friend was over, so we taught them both.
He’s doing great, and he’ll be staying here in this house. His friend is going to go to church with him
and start going to seminary. Nathaniel
asked when he could receive the priesthood, so we explained, then we taught the
plan of salvation and he talked about going to the temple to do the baptism for
his mom.
Also,
something happened to Simara today where a nerve in her back got pinched, so
she was in a lot of pain and had to go get a bunch of meds. When I heard I got scared that this would
lead her to fall again with smoking. But
when I managed to call her, she said, No, I only smoked one today. It was hard, but only one.” HA! Nice try Satan!!! He won’t be messing up our work, NO!
Another
cool thing is that we passed by the house of the grandma of Igor, the young man
who’s waiting for his call now. She let
us in, and we started teaching her as Igor had asked us. To our surprise, her and Igor’s aunt loved
the message, and they both want to go to church with us! Igor had said he didn’t know if they would
show much interest. We want to surprise
Igor, coming to church with his grandma.
That would be Great!
So, we used
to visit this one family of less-actives, but they didn’t go to church so we
stopped. Today I learned why it was so
hard to get them to church. The man,
when his wife got pregnant and left him for a little, went crazy, bought a gun,
and killed a few people, one of which was the guy his wife head left him
for. They got back together, and now
they’re a family. But it’s crazy. I mean, we helped them move into their new
house! Crazy, Crazy! There’s a lot more, but I won’t share.
Today was
day 360 of my mission.
(2) SABADO
(Saturday): Today there was a
woman’s party thing that’s similar to a baby shower, but it’s for when the
woman buys a new house. There was a TON of good food, and seeing how we helped
set up this morning, we passed by to leave a message and also look at all the
food because we are fasting for fast Sunday.
But tomorrow we’ll pass by her house to eat all the leftovers. WOOT WOOT!
Then after
we got home I cut my hair. I’m getting
good at cutting my own hair. Not much to
report today because all the rest fell through.
Today was day 361 of my mission.
(3) DOMINGO (Sunday): Today was interesting. So,
my comp and I had made a goal of a certain number of addresses that we wanted
to get this week. Last night, the last day of the week, we were short. So we
were running around talking with literally EVERYONE. When all of the sudden a
drunk comes running up the hill, yelling for us to wait. We wait, and he comes,
staggering, out of breath, and that strong stench of beer. He comes, and starts
saying the weirdest things. He started out “I’m two things: I’m a drunk, and
I’m a prophet. And I had a vision of 2 white prophets, climbing a hill quickly,
peaching. I was told to tell you guys that your faith is very real, but what
you’re teaching is not. Your church is false. The true church is in São Paulo,
and is called Fullness. I don’t know if this church exists, but its what God
told me.” HAHAHAHAHAH and the whole while he’s almost falling down, and he’d
yell some things, then whisper others. After I said ´you’ve been drinking a
lot, haven’t you?´ he said ´no, not at all.... alright a little. I said I’m a
drunk. But I’m also a prophet.´ Then he started shaking a lot, and yelling in a
weird language, and I’m very convinced that he was actually possessed. He would
speak in a deep scratchy voice and hit himself, then suddenly switch to normal,
not remembering anything. We said we had to leave, and he said he was going to
the same way, all normal. So, we go walking, and we cross to the other side of
the street. He said ´see ya later! And don’t forget my prophecy!´ then as we
were entering, he started shaking, stopped, then slowly turned his head to look
at us, then had the strong look of hate on his face I’ve ever seen, then
extended his hand at us, then started running to us, as fast as any drunk can
run. I thought for a quick second ´wait for him, then when he gets here punch
him in the nose as hard as you can´ then I thought better not do that no. So we
entered the house super fast, and shut the door. Then, just as the door shut,
he started rattling the door knob. Like classic scary movie scene!! hahahaha it
was CRAZY!!! Then I sat there thinking all night. I’ve already expelled demons
in my mission, why didn’t I do it again this time? I don’t know, but the thought
didn’t even come to my mind.
Simara called us, saying that she
had watched 17 miracles, and she had one question. Why weren’t there any black people with
them? Wow, I don’t even know how to
respond to that. This week was
good. I’m happy and healthy. Today was day 362 of my mission.
Love you all. Elder McKee
"it´s super good. That drink isn't the real stuff they use. its coconut, with milk that we heat with condensed milk. its not the real thing no, and until the let us drink the real thing I'll be with this fake one thats super good. :)"
Our District
No comments:
Post a Comment