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| Elder Perry with new Brazilian friends |
Our task that we will be working on this week will be one young man named Brendo. The missionaries before us had already taught him many of the lessons, and he says that he wants to be baptized, but right now his dad does not want him to be baptized. We are going to visit with him with another family that had similar doubts, who are now all baptized, to help him understand a little more, so that he will allow Brendo to be baptized.
Our other investigators include Silvia, and her daughter Dianie. They are both great. Silvia is always trying to feed us food and give us Coke. The other night, we arrived at their house, ready to teach about the restoration, when they quickly invited us in and took us to the back of the house. They were cooking all this meat on this grill, and pouring cups of Coca Cola. They made us sit down and eat unhealthily large portions of this mystery meat. As I have learned here, if you try to deny any food, the immediate response is, “You don’t like it….” I later learned that it was in fact goat meat. But after eating all that, they offered us sweet bananas that had been completely charred on the grill. They actually tasted pretty good. Some of the other people at the house started drinking large amounts of alcohol after that, and started rubbing the charred banana peels on their faces to make mustaches. Once they approached us, we decided that that was our cue to leave. We left a pamphlet with them to read, and will be returning later this week to follow up.
Another story this week is about Carlos. He was one of the first young men we met here in the area who had not yet been baptized. His house was really small, but he lived in there with his parents, and 8 younger siblings. Every time we would go to his house, we would be greeted by at least 5 of them. We taught Carlos a little, and invited him to be baptized. He accepted our date and we left. We came back the next day, and he wasn’t there. The next day, we talked to him, and he said he hadn’t read, and his dad came out and said Carlos wasn’t interested. So that was a real bummer. But, we were not deterred.
One last really cool experience. Our area is fortunately really diverse. We have “Cidade 2000” and the “Barreiros” which are a little more wealth, and a little less, respectively. One day, after growing tired of walking, Makino and I decided to make another trip to the Barreiros to do some contacting. (The walk from our apartment to this area is probably 25-30 minutes). But we started knocking on doors. A few people would respond, but a majority of the homes were empty. We walked down one street, past a few people sitting on the side of the road, to this home of a man who we could see inside. We gave him the basic church invitation, which he said “maybe” to, just like basically everyone else. But during this, I noticed one of the people across the street watching us talk to this man. Once Elder Makino had wrapped up, he turned and started walking down the road in the opposite direction of the people watching. I told him to wait, and we walked over and talked to them. The woman who had been watching us is named Glaciani. She was sitting with her friend, who is a hardcore Catholic. Her friend seemed really angry that we were talking with them, but Glaciani was very kind and said that she would attend church with us…maybe. Two days later, we felt impressed to stop by her house. When we did, she greeted us very warmly, and let us sit down. She lives currently with her husband, and her 14 year old son. She told us that she was born and raised Catholic, but had always felt like it was wrong. She said that she had tried to visit many other churches, but they all felt wrong also. We taught her the first lesson and she ate it all up. She was so excited when we gave her a Book of Mormon, and wrote our testimonies in it for her. She said that she wants us to return to teach some more when her husband and son are both home to hear our message. I cannot wait to see the progression of this family.
Anyway, that’s about all for now. We are also going to try to teach a really old woman named “Socorro” which translates to “relief” in English. It would be great to see Socorro in the “Sociedade de Socorro.” We have a few more leads, and plan on dishing out a few more baptismal dates this week.
About conference... my favorite talk was probably Elder Uchtdorf’s during the Sunday morning (afternoon here) session. And not just because he talked about The Hobbit. This life, the mission, everything has its own path that we must try to follow, all with the intention of returning home with a great reward. Despite the trolls, orcs, goblins, and dragon, we will be protected in everything we do. So yeah, definitely my favorite. Also, I am already getting hyped for the super secret special general conference in 6 months... Who else??
I love you all! I love this work!
Elder Perry
P.S. Also, shoutout to Elias Stewart, who is leaving to the MTC this week. Good luck, you'll be a great missionary! (Hopefully your time down in Provo doesn't mess with your head too much!)
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| Elder Perry & the Fortaleza Temple |
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| Elder Perry & Elder Makino with more friends |
