A scripture President
Castro brought to our attention has been in our thoughts this week: 1 Cor.15:58:
“…….know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord”. We try hard, sometimes without success. It is nice to be reminded that what we do in
the name of the Lord is not in vain.
We have had a good
week, a busy one. We tried to fit a lot
into a shorter than usual week because of our trip to Porto Alegre on Friday
for a missionary conference.
Julio and Rosangela
have been on our minds a lot this week because their baby is past due now. We visited there several times this week as
did Elder Buhler and Elder Gorham. Julio
is a member, formerly very active and a leader in the Marina branch. Rosangela tells us that she is ready to be
baptized. The only thing holding her
back is that she and Julio are not married.
Julio gives us excuses for not getting married like insurance, etc. We aren’t quite sure of his real reasons. We
do not fully understand. He tells us
that he has a testimony. Rosangela is
wonderful and the kids are so great.
They seem like such a happy family.
We would really like to see this family become an eternal family. It is frustrating when we want so bad to see
it happen for them. Their youngest boy
(youngest until the baby is born) had a birthday on Tuesday. We stopped by their home. They weren’t having his birthday party, cake,
etc. until Thursday. So we ran to the
corner store and bought a carton of ice cream so he could have a treat on his
birthday. Then on Thursday, we returned
for the official birthday party. They
had cake, salgados, etc. We brought
watermelon and a package of three little balls for a present. He and the other kids loved the balls. We checked with them either by phone or in
person about every day. This baby will
surely come soon! Some of the branch
sisters plan to visit with food, etc. We
think that is what this family needs, some support from branch members. Julio did mention to us, “What happens to us
when you are gone?” Hopefully, they can
form some good friendships with branch members.
It just might make all the difference.
Anyway, we are excited for this baby (Fernando) to be born!
We had another great
lesson with Elivelton and Bruna. We
talked about the Book of Mormon this week.
We also talked about how nice it is to read the scriptures together and
pray together as a married couple. They
are moving along with their wedding plans.
We will probably be able to get in another lesson or two before the
wedding. We have been amazed that they
still want to make time to hear more lessons when they are so busy fixing up a
house to live in, with work, etc. We
also gave them some of the “Share the present” cards. Bruna went straightaway and got her computer
and looked up the video. We watched it together. By the
time we got home that evening, Bruna had already shared it on Facebook. Love it!
We have had a lot of fun passing out these cards. “He is the present” is such a great
message! We were given a ton of cards to
pass out and have already given out a lot.
There was a lot to fit
in on Thursday. But we managed to visit
José and Artur. Both were good
visits. Artur had a lot to talk about it
seemed and his brother was there visiting.
We had trouble fitting in our gospel message this week. But we enjoyed the visits.
Our friend, Jessica,
who works as a checker at the IMEC grocery store, found out that the birthday
of Sister Shirley was coming up. She had
made us promise to come back. She
presented Sister Shirley with a birthday rose and a nice note. A nice surprise and very thoughtful!
Elder Torgan of the
Seventy and Sister Torgan were in Porto Alegre for a “Tour of the Mission”
conference on Friday. We all loaded into
a van at 4:30 am Friday morning for the 3 hour trip to Porto Alegre. It was an all-day conference, lasting until 5
pm. They served us lunch there at the
chapel. We got to see lots of familiar
faces of missionaries who had previously served in Cachoeira. It was an informative, spiritual conference. It
was really special. We enjoyed it a lot. And during lunch, Sister Shirley was
surprised with a rendition of “Happy Birthday” by about 150 plus missionaries. We also slipped away for a few minutes to
visit Elder Shirley’s old friend from his first mission, Alceu. Alceu has an office next door to the mission
office. It was a short, but nice visit
with him. We try to do that every time
we are in Porto Alegre. It was a great day.
Those are some of the
highlights of the week. In between, we
filled our time with Branch meetings, English classes, lots of other visits,
playing ball in the street with kids, etc.
We were also invited to some gaucho dance instruction at the Cachoeira
branch. They want to do that once a week
for the next several weeks. It was fun. They hope to have a “baile” or two in the
Cachoeira branch before we go home. We
also had a really nice birthday dinner, just the two of us, at Per Tutti Grill
which was all decorated for Christmas!
Speaking of Christmas, we hung a cute Christmas decoration on the door
of our apartment. A couple of days
later, our next-door neighbors, hung up a very similar one. So we
are enjoying that.
We missed being home
for Thanksgiving. It was hard not to
think of what you all were doing.
Although, Thursday was such a busy missionary day that we didn’t have
time for our thoughts to linger on homesickness very much. It was just a normal missionary day for
us. We did have some turkey deli meat
and made a turkey sandwich. Some of the
Elders had pizza. Good thing for lots of
work. There is nothing like working hard
to cure homesickness. In fact, work
cures the majority of problems in the mission field. President Castro has reminded us that our
time in the mission field is short, but of eternal importance! We are happy to be serving!
We hope you had a
great Thanksgiving! You are in our
thoughts and prayers! Now it’s Christmas
to look forward to! Remember “He is the
Present”! Love to all!
Eu te amo!
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