This week was good! It’s transfers and I will be . . . transferred to the heart of Recife! It sounds like both me and my companion will be new. It’s going to be very, very different. The Casa Forte neighborhood is full of skyscrapers and it’s super close to the mission house. I’m not going to spend any time travelling to anywhere! We will go to the temple this transfer (finally!!!) and we won’t have to stay overnight in another apartment because we can just catch the metro and be home in twenty minutes! I am afraid I will lose all the hill-climbing muscles I’ve built up. Talking to people on the street should be quite different as well. I have never lived in a huge city (that I can remember anyway) and it will definitely be a change. I am a little nervous but also very excited.
São João/Festa Junina is in full swing. The streets are full of colored flags, lanterns, houses are wrapped in floral fabric, there are scarecrow heads everywhere, and the streets are full of food made of corn. There are a lot of accordions and colorful dresses and loud music.
We had trouble finding people at home this week, so we did a lot of contacting. In our mission we count how many times we read a scripture with someone (but it only counts once per lesson) and we did that this week more than I have ever done until now. It was good to meet a lot of new people. We met a number of old investigators. There are two families who were taught seven years ago. We went into their house and there were huge pictures of the missionaries on the wall! Huge like 1 foot by two feet, maybe a little bigger! We never would have known if we hadn’t decided to do a contact with them after asking for directions, because they hadn’t said. That was a miracle for sure.
It seems pretty obvious that they didn’t get baptized because they weren’t interested in switching religions and never put in the effort to ask God about what was right. So I think there is the possibility that none of them will end up progressing, but I am hoping that there will be at least one person that will progress. It is cool to think about it from the missionaries’ point of view. Apparently this family still talks to the missionaries on Facebook. It would be so great to find out that one of my old investigators was baptized! Also interesting to think about where I will be in five or seven years — both of the former missionary sisters are married and have children (one has twins!).
Recently we have been focusing on the Book of Mormon in our contacts rather than the message of the Restoration. The Restoration is essential, but it is hard for people to understand on the street. I have noticed that a lot more people reject a visit, but this is good because it means that we don’t waste our time visiting people that wouldn’t be interested. Also, some people remember what we talked about and seem really interested in getting a book! Sometimes we show up and they ask for a Book of Mormon before we even mention it! We talked to one person, Carlos,* at his work. We were trying to mark a visit with him for a different day and he said “So do you have the thing for me?” Bystanders might have been worried that a drug deal was happening, but actually he was just excited about the Book of Mormon! The results don’t seem to have quite gotten to the marking-for-baptism-and-having-them-show-up-to-church quite yet, but I think it will.
Michele is reading the Book of Mormon and loving it. She still can’t go to church because she is taking care of her aged aunt, but it was very rewarding to hear that she is recognizing that the Book of Mormon is true! She said she feels good when she reads. Maria Eduarda couldn’t go to church this week, but told us that since we are visiting her her life has improved 60%. She said before we visited her she wasn’t praying and nothing went her way. She says that now she feels better, she is better off financially–everything is a little better! Reminds me of the last verse of Mosiah 2. Keeping the commandments (like pray every day and go to church) really does bless us!
This week we deep cleaned our house. You would not believe how much dust can build up on the tops of doors, etc. I hope my new house is clean too!
*The names of all investigators are changed in order to protect their privacy.
Headed to Recife 