Im doing so super! Im finally starting to understand a lot more of what people are saying, its a miracle! Coming out of the MTC I thought I had a pretty good sense of Portugues but when I arrived here I couldnt understand a single thing pretty much, because the people here have such thick accents! This lanuguage is pretty difficult in my opinion and I was feeling pretty down when I knew i was saying the right words but people could not understand me becuase of the way i was saying it, my gringo accent...but now im starting to be understood by everyone, i guess im losing my gringo accent!!! Great sign!
Yesterday night i did something strange... I said a prayer in English for this young man who is a member but is starting to become less active so we spent some time talking to him to renew his faith. This young man really likes to listen to english music, as do a lot of the young people here, and he really wants to learn english, so he made me pray in english, and something scary was happening to me, it was really difficult for me to pray in english! So crazy, im starting to forget some words...Great sign I guess, but i dont want to forget english! haha but it is really comforting that the language is starting to come along...
This week was really awesome, we are really stregthening and bringing in the youth of this area, Jefferson was Baptized last Thursday! Antonio´s brother. And we are planning to have more baptism meetings this week!!!
Im so grateful to be here in Brasil and that the people here are very open to talk about religion, it really is a hot topic to converse about here. There are different church´s almost around every corner, churchs here are like starbucks in Washington haha, though i shouldnt be comparing church´s to starbucks, only comparing them in the sense of how many their are to make that clear...There are a lot of confused people here and they dont know it themselves most of the time and we have many opportunities to make things clear for them, but sometimes they say they understand but they will not accept our message...Some people here say they get it but they dont want to change churches becuase they like their church too much and it makes me really sad that they say they get it but will not change becuase that means they truly dont get the message...I know missions around the world are different and you will learn many different things. For the missionaries in America it is a lot harder to get people to open up, but it will be that much sweeter when they do.
Last sunday during Elders qorum we were quitely having a nice lesson then all of the sudden a huge explosion sound went off, a fuse blew out, and the power of the church went out. Was pretty cool but was also really terrible because then the fans stopped working and it was like a sauna! Was no big deal, we got the power up and running again. Had the opportunity to bear my testimony again in sacrament! Was thinking a I wasnt going to since I did last month but then Elder G. Costa said, You have 24 times you have to bear your testimony in sacrament! and i was like what! but then i realized and it is my duty as a missionary to bear my testimony and to strenghten the ward whenever i can!
Im so grateful for my opportunity to serve and for the knowledge of the Gospel in my life, Super excited to teach and learn more this week!!! and for Dia das Mães!
Until Next week!
Love Elder Howell
Jefferson's baptism!
No comments:
Post a Comment