Hey Family!
Thank you all so much for the great letters and photos! I'm so excited about everything happening with our little family.
So this week... it rained. Our house has serious problems:
1. Leaks in the roof.
2. It's in the shade for the whole morning and turns the place into an icebox. We've seriously started studying out in our yard; it's warmer.
3. The floor wasn't done right and so moisture comes in from the ground and makes it really humid inside.
4. Our bed frames broke so we're sleeping with our mattresses on the floor.
5. General uncleanliness and desperation has made the place a mess.
We literally are trying not to stay in our house the whole morning cause it just sucks being inside. I'm fine, but Elder Persinger has had a couple heallth problems until now. We should move into our new house here in 2 weeks (if everything goes well)! Man, it's really draining us.
I was super excited that Sunday, Junior, an investigator we found on the street, went to church all dressed up in suit and tie. He's 25, works and studies alone, and is used to belong to another church. He had heard a bunch of negative stuff about the church, but after visiting with us and going to English classes decided to give it a try. The ward really accepted him and he seemed to really like all of church. He's gonna be baptized I know it!
We finally marked our appointment with the Pastor. Man, we were praying and fasting so much. We practiced our approach multiple times. We opened our Bibles and gave the message, and declared authority, and beared testimony, and spoke in unity, love, boldness, but not overbearingness.... and at the end, Altamir, the pastor whose friendship we had gained for the last month, and who told us he would even give his life to follow Christ, said, "Even if this perfect church exists like you say it does, I wouldn't go, because I'd be out of business." Boh.
That hit pretty hard. He seemed like a pretty honest, humble, sincere follower of Christ, but in the end they rejected our scriptures and testimonies, saying that they didn't believe you need authority given from God to make a church, and that they would read the Book of Mormon's that we gave them (that we had written our testimonies in) only if the Holy Ghost specifically told them to. We asked them to pray to feel the Holy Ghost telling them to read the book, and they barely agreed.
Man, that was tough! I had been preparing myself the entire transfer for that meeting! And it all broke apart in front of our eyes. That's the hardest part of the mission: keeping high expectations even in the face of so many contrary evidences.
But the next day... Junior came to church. And he's excited about the church. That is enough of a miracle for me. :)
Something cool happened Sunday after lunch. We have this member that gives lunch once a month and he lives WAY WAY WAY out in the middle of nowhere on a ranch. The ride is pretty long so I for some odd reason, (I never do this) bring my Italian Book of Mormon to page through and try to learn Italian (I guess I just want more to learn).
After lunch, Argeu, the member, says he wants us to meet some friends of his. We get into the car and drive even FURTHER into the middle of nowhere and show up at a house with 50 dogs in the front lawn. We talk with this old lady, she says she has HER mom living with her, who's 97 (old for Brasilians!) and came from Italy when she was little, and is sick and bedridden, and does nothing but read her huge, old, Italian bible all day, cause she only speaks Italian and reads Italian. We asked to go see her, (I wanted maybe to practice some Italian words I've learned and read something from my Book of Mormon). We met her, RINA, this little old speckled grandma who said she was waiting for a pastor to see her and that God sent us to her, and even though it was hard to understand and nothing really was communicated, it was really really special and she was so grateful for our attention (just imagine, living in the middle of nowhere with your daughter, not leaving your room). We read a part of the Book of Mormon with her and prayed and talked about Joseph Smith and she got so excited that I got my pen out and dedicated my Italian Book of Mormon and gave it to her. She kissed the cover and looked upward to thank God, and actually I got worried cause she kissed me on the hand and on the cheeks and it was really just really powerful, and she said that now she would ONLY read the Book of Mormon, because she had read the Bible too many times. :)
That was a really really special visit for me. :) We're gonna go there next month to see how far she gets in the Book of Mormon. :)
I know, it was sooo cool! Man, I just don't know how to process these things when they happen. But I am so grateful that the Lord takes care of all of His children, and that He can do that through His servants. It all just seems so random. I didn't feel any huge prompting - I just wanted to read my Italian BoM. But, still, God guided His word to Rina. Wow.
Awesome.
Anyway, everything here is normal. Truckin along. I love this work so much :). I hope I can keep doing it the rest of my life!
Love you all!
Elder Connor
Oh, sorry, no photos today! Droga! Our camera battery ran out. ;(
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