May 6, 2017
Video to text
again. I’m trying to keep it exactly how
he says it.
His English is so fun to
listen to.
I use the excuse that I don’t have time to write in my
journal, which is a little true, because I don’t have as much time, but I do
have time to write in my journal. It’s
just the fact that I’ve written in my journal a lot, and I’ve kind of gotten
out of the habit, and I don’t really have an excuse. But now I’m using this as a way to get out of
writing in my journal.
Today was
our p-day (April 29) and we woke up at 7:00.
And it was super cold so I put on a long sleeve shirt, and then a
sweatshirt, and then my big old jacket, and then my other bigger old coat. Then I was walking around in that. I looked like a ball with legs. Then I wrapped up in another missionaries
blanket because he has a really thick blanket.
But, I didn’t sleep, we sat there talking. But then I studies till 8:30, and then I laid
back down and slept a little bit, because I could, because it was p-day. And then we went to the store…oh…look at
this. So, we lent our grass cutter, which is like a weed eater. Here to cut their grass everyone uses their
weed eaters. And so we lent our weed
eater to the neighbor. He’s 19 years
old, already has a child, but he’s a good kid.
We taught him a few times. He
asked to borrow our weed eater, and I didn’t see anything wrong with that. But, what went wrong is that he broke one of
the parts. But, I think he got
embarrassed because he didn’t tell us that he broke it. He came to us and gave us the entire machine,
the entire weed eater, except the little part underneath that holds the little
nylon wire that cuts the grass. So, he
gave us all that, and I said, “Hey, we’re missing this part.” And he said, “Yeah, I don’t know what
happened. But somebody came into our
yard, grabbed the machine, grabbed the weed eater, and stole this little part
underneath.” And I said, “Why wouldn’t
they just steal the whole machine, and not just the little cup that is
underneath, that cost like 20 raeis, like $7.00?” And he said, “I don’t know, but I think it’s
because I tied up the weed eater.” I
think he just got embarrassed and didn’t want to admit that he had broken our
weed eater. So, we went and I bought the
new parts to be able to use it and cut our grass. But we didn’t have time because the other
elders had a baptism. Then we ate
lunch. My lunch was 4 scrambled eggs with
some bread. That’s about all I ate
today, but we are going to have 2 pizzas right now to celebrate the baptism. Then we cleaned the house because it was
mess. It’s the transit house and we had
24 missionaries in our house for the missionary council, for all the leaders. And then we had a bunch of other elders,
because they were training, and a bunch of other elders that were going
home. It’s like the house is
trashed. So we cleaned the house. Then we talked with our families, which was
really good. I’m starting to, when it’s
my p-day, I’m sitting there talking to my family, talking to Joci, and looking
at BYU at the same time to see how it works.
And I got on there today, I went on MYBYU, and I saw that Dad’s already
like planned everything. I was looking
at the major to be a graphic design, and looking at classes, and thinking oh, I
need to sign up for these classes, and I went in there to see how it all works,
and dad had it all laid out with those classes.
So, thanks dad. Then we went to the baptism. And Pricilla, which is our golden
investigator, Pricilla went and she was looking at all the people, like Elder
Barbosa, and the woman in white, and she turned around and said, “Now, which of
you is going to be the one in white when I get baptized. Which made me super happy because she
recognized that she’s going to be baptized on the 27th of May. We were like, “you can choose, or you can
choose some member from the ward.” She
was like, “no, I want it to be one of you guys.
I’m going to think about it.” And
we were like “alright.” We just talked
to her. She talked about all the tests
she is doing for her finals. She is
studying to be a dentist. And she was
talking about how stressed out she is and everything, and how this is a little
break for her. Coming to the baptism was
like a little break for her. And right
there in the hallway we taught her about fasting, and how to fast, and the
benefits and blessings of fasting. And
tomorrow we are going to do a fast with her.
I think she’ll do it for like 8 hours or 12, and we are going to do a 24
hour fast. And that will help her gain a
testimony of the fast. Because she will
see how it will bring a difference to her.
After the
baptism we went to this young kid name DeLucas.
He’s 12 years old. We taught him
a few times in the park with his friends, a group of 5 young men. We’re good friends with them all. So, we teach them at the park. And we had set it up with Lucas that we’d
pass by and take him to church. So we
passed by and his dad answered and Lucas wasn’t home, but his dad
answered. And he came with all the
excuses that come when we try and contact, “no, I’m really busy with stuff and
I can’t answer you right now.” And he
went running back in, so I kind of yelled, “Hey, we don’t even want to talk to
you.” And my companion said, “we just
wanted to confirm for tomorrow to pick up Lucas to go to the church.” And the dad yelled, “no! I’m his dad and I don’t let him.” But he was
like super rude and everything, and I got mad but I didn’t say anything, and my
companion was like “that is why we came here to talk with you. We wanted to ask if we could.” And the guy was already shutting the door
cause he’s a rude old fart. So, yeah,
we’re not going to pick up Lucas tomorrow.
But we have
another woman named Nooza, who I talked about in the last week’s video. We stopped by there right now to confirm with
her that we were going to come by and take her to church, but she didn’t
answer. So, we’re just going to go with
faith that she will go with us to church.
A lot of faith, man. Then we went
to another house, of a recent convert.
This recent convert, she is like super dedicated to the church, she’s 17
years old. And she’s a snake. But she was at a young woman’s activity, so
it was just her family, her grandma, her aunt and uncle, and her cousin that
lives with her, she’s 7 years old. She’s
also a snake, but she’s like a good snake, like a cute little snake that
everyone likes. But they really don’t
have a lot of interest in being baptized, but they like us a lot. And literally it’s been about a month that we
haven’t gone there, and they got a little mad at us. But, her aunt that likes us a lot, she’s
really cool, but she doesn’t really believe in God, she asked if I would be the
Godfather of her child that she discovered that she is going to have. She discovered that she is pregnant, and asked
me to be her baby’s Godfather. Which I
don’t know what a Godfather does so I asked her, “What do I have to do to be a
Godfather?” She said, “Well, you just
have to be present in his life, help him, you have to love him, and when he is
born you have to baptize him.” And I was
like, “WHAT!” and she was like “yep, but
we’re going to do it here at home. But
he’s going to be born in October.” And I
was like, “I’m already going to be at home.”
And she was like, “yeah, I thought about that.” Then I think she got a little embarrassed
because she saw that in our religion, in the church, we don’t’ baptize babies,
nor do we have Godfathers and Godmothers.
Then I talked to her, and I think she got embarrassed. We talked to her about baptizing babies, and
we don’t do that, and I think they got a little embarrassed and angry, because we
explained that we don’t do that kind of thing, because it’s not right.
Now, we are
coming home. We’re going to have 2
pizzas, and that’s about it for our day.
So it’s
p-day (May 6) and we’re on our way to the computer house, and I forgot to tell
you guys about a few things and I don’t want to take the time to write it while
I’m on the computer. It was super,
super cool. So, we went to this guy’s
house. His name is Giovanni, he’s 33
years old, and he’s really, really good.
My companion found him while he was on an exchange with another
elder. And this guy, Giovanni just
called them from the side of the road and said, “Hey, come here, come
here.” And they went and talked to him.
So, in this lesson yesterday we were there and he told us about 4 or 5 times
that he wants to be baptized on Sunday.
But he hasn’t gone to church yet, but he’s really ready to start his
life over. He’s done a lot of drugs in
his life and everything, but now he’s all clean. But he stills feels that door, that pain and
he feels guilty. But it was really,
really cool, and we talked about faith, repentance, and baptism and what it
does, and how it cures us. And he’s
going to be baptized on the 20th of May. So, that was really cool.
And we had
a great lesson with a man called Gidda (?), who’s an old guy. And he also accepted baptism, and he lives
about 2 blocks away from the church, so it’s going to be real easy to take him
to church. And that’s about it.
Today on
P-day all the secretaries came and we had a big Churrasco at our house. And I made the meat. Yeah, I cooked the meat. And it was really, really good. Whoa!
Oh yeah, while we were eating our lunch, the old lady who lives by our
house, she has to be about 104 or something, she’s really old. But she came and started telling us that she
was going to cut our grass for us because we were taking too long to cut our
grass. But I cut it this morning. But then the grass cutter, the lawn mower,
broke. So, I took all the pieces apart,
and went all MacGyver on the lawn mower and found where it was broke, and I
went to buy the part, but they don’t sell it here, so I’m just going to put a
wire there, and it will be good. But she
didn’t even let me finish cutting it.
She just went there with a big, old knife and started cutting it, and
taking it all out. Then she just started
ripping up all of our grass. She said we needed to take all the roots
out. Which I didn’t’ really understand,
but I was just like all right. If this
old lady wants to tear up our grasses roots, I’m just going to let her do
it. I just went back into the house and
we ate lunch, and cleaned up some stuff with the secretaries. And that was our p-day.
Elder Munns and Jake
Jake, Elder Santos, Elder Alencar, Elder Bezerra
I will let you know what time I am calling on Sunday for
Mother’s day. Thanks for
everything. I love you all.
Elder McKee
Elder Costa and Elder Barbosa
Elder Cardozo, Elder McKee, Elder Loureiro, Elder Costa
Elder Olegario, Elder Cardozo, Elder Santos, Elder Barbosa
Elder Costa, Jake
Santa Maria Zone Conference, May 2
