Month: October 2019

Mission Council

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This morning I made mango juice —- mango season is starting!  I am excited!  This week was pretty different — we got home at 7:30 on Tuesday from new leader training and 7:15-ish on Wednesday from Mission Council.  I learned a lot! 

Sister Anaya and Sister Faulconer at the mission home

A couple highlights:  
President Houseman said that the pattern for making decisions in the Church is group revelation in councils.  Lots of people say “Wow, President Nelson changed . . .” but actually these things are decided in council and prepared for and discussed ahead of time.  Everything is done in order.  In councils, the members receive revelation, everyone discusses, and the leader makes the final decision. People might receive conflicting inspiration, and maybe the final decision will be different than the inspiration someone had.  But it is all part of the process.

There is a difference between following-up and demanding [acompanhar and cobrar in Portuguese] information.  Leaders follow-up to help you make progress with the goals you set for yourself. Not-so-great leaders give you quotas and then demand the results.  In Zion’s Camp, when the wagons got stuck, Joseph Smith was the first one to take off his shoes, roll up his trousers, and get in the mud to pull them.  Good leaders are the first ones to go to work with others, motivating them along the way, rather than staying on the sidelines to shout orders.  Even if you shout orders in a really charismatic, motivational way, that’s not enough!  

Sister Houseman gave a really great talk on leadership. She had an amazing stake president who felt really inadequate when he was called.  He decided to use his leadership calling as an opportunity for personal growth.  At every opportunity he thought “How would a stake president act?” Running late and want to leave the shopping cart in the parking space?  What would a ward member think if they saw that?  A stake president would take the shopping cart back to the right spot, so he did!  

Even though Sister Anaya and I had a lot less time to work than we had last week, we managed to teach first lessons with more people than last week and we have more new investigators than last week!  Little miracles.

Speaking of miracles, Davi* got baptized!!  He is doing great!  On Monday he was fasting with us in order to be able to resist temptation and get baptized.  Before lunch (when he would break his fast) he was feeling really hungry, so he left the house in order to avoid eating.  He went to a relative’s house —- and the relative was drinking (alcohol) and eating.  His relative repeatedly invited him to drink and eat, but he stayed strong!  It’s great because it seems like the ward is doing a good job of integrating him already.  One of the recent converts stopped by throughout the week to ask him how he was, read scripture verses (he can’t read), and tell him he was excited for his baptism! 

L to R; Sister Anaya, Sister Faulconer and Davi*

Sacrament meeting attendance was less-than-stellar. Read: our recent investigators did not go to church.  But I was pleasantly surprised when I got to the area and discovered that there are two couples who aren’t married but have been consistently going to church!  I knew that this happened but in my past areas the plethora of people who needed to get married were not religious church-goers– maybe they went a few times but they never stayed strong.  Here there are two women, Daniela and Juliana, who have children that are recent converts and are consistently going to church, going to activities, reading the scriptures, etc.  Unfortunately, one of them has a husband who doesn’t want to get married and also doesn’t have documents.  The other one also doesn’t have the right documents, but they just need to go to the marriage office.  It is a bit difficult because of work hours, but hopefully it all works out! 

Today we are going to start making horchata!  I mentioned to Sister Anaya that I like it and she mentioned that she knows how to make it.  This week we are also going to do a split with the sisters of Palmares.  I am going to Palmares — it will be weird!  Hopefully good too.  Sister Anaya did a split with a sister training leader who had already served in the area once.  The sister ran into an ancient investigator and found out she had separated from her husband (she hadn’t been able to get baptized before because they weren’t married. They had been deciding if they would separate or not).  She got baptized!  Not expecting that kind of miracle necessarily but a cool story, right? 

I don’t remember if I said this before, but a lot of people here think that after you die you won’t remember anything. God will tell you how your past life was. You will see your relatives but you won’t remember they were your relatives.  I respect other people’s right to choose their religion, but I am grateful to believe that families can be together forever. It’s a truth that is truly wonderful — our loving relationships continue after this life! — and also makes sense — why would you be punished for something you don’t remember?  It is also a good warning — we will remember our lives on judgement day!  A guilty conscience could be worse than fire and brimstone.  

Alma 5:15-18

15 Do ye exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you? Do you look forward with an eye of faith, and view this mortal body raised in immortality, and this corruption raised in incorruption, to stand before God to be judged according to the deeds which have been done in the mortal body?

16 I say unto you, can you imagine to yourselves that ye hear the voice of the Lord, saying unto you, in that day: Come unto me ye blessed, for behold, your works have been the works of righteousness upon the face of the earth?

17 Or do ye imagine to yourselves that ye can lie unto the Lord in that day, and say—Lord, our works have been righteous works upon the face of the earth—and that he will save you?

18 Or otherwise, can ye imagine yourselves brought before the tribunal of God with your souls filled with guilt and remorse, having a remembrance of all your guilt, yea, a perfect remembrance of all your wickedness, yea, a remembrance that ye have set at defiance the commandments of God?

I would like to be the first person described, not the second!

A funny moment: I forgot to say that last Sunday I was asked to give a testimony at the last minute. I thought it went okay, but afterwards I found out that I had said I was glad to be in Carpina (a different area) instead of Candeias.  You can learn the language but you can’t stop goofing up!  Luckily there are worse errors that could be made.  But it was funny, because I was trying to tell people how happy I was to be in their ward — except I said the wrong ward.  Ooops!

*Investigators names are always changed

Hello from Candeias!

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Candeias cityscape

We met some awesome family members of an investigator in Casa Forte before I left.  The dad said he knew he needed to live the law of chastity but he had proposed to his wife twice (with a ring and flowers) and she hadn’t accepted.  She isn’t very religious but they all agreed to go to church this Sunday. I hope they went! When we left the dad was already sitting on the couch reading the Book of Mormon!  I also got some great news from the sisters in Gravatá–one of Maria Eduarda’s* daughters got baptized! Maria Eduarda is the investigator I wrote about who didn’t believe in God.  Apparently she is still praying very regularly and is grateful that we visited her and taught her to pray. 

We had originally contacted this daughter and met Maria Eduarda because she was there when we tried to visit her daughter.  We taught her daughter a few times and invited her to be baptized, but she was working every single weekend in a different city.  It literally wasn’t possible for her to go to church, and some of the days we visited her family she was gone working. But she must not be working there anymore!  Very gratifying, because until now I had only heard bad news about my former areas. Also, it sounds like Victor and David, two of Gravatá´s recent converts, are doing great.

The Transfer Saga: First, Sister Pereira (who I was traveling with) and I dragged our suitcases to the bus stop.  It is close, but her suitcase was a bit broken so that was still a bit hard. Then we got on the bus going away from the metro instead of towards it, but we just got off at the next stop and got on the right bus.  Stupid, but not too big of a deal. We got to the metro and our metro was just leaving. But the next one got there in 15ish minutes, so not a big deal. Everything was difficult because we had suitcases and I am a klutz, but everything worked out. 

I got off the metro and onto my minibus to Candeias right on schedule.  I asked the driver when I should get off and he told me he would tell me.  I paid attention to the time to hopefully know about when we would get close to Candeias.  After a few stops, a member of the church started talking to me. He said a few things about his mission, his ward, etc., and then asked where I was getting off.  I told him, only to be informed that I had already passed my stop. Oops! I felt dumb but thought, “Wow, I am so grateful that God is sending angels to help me on transfer day.  So glad I ran into that member” (cue the ominous wrong-decision music). He said the chapel was the next stop so I could get off there. I thought it was funny that our apartment wasn’t closer to the chapel, but maybe some areas are like that? 

I got off at the chapel (I later discovered that at this point I was a 5-10 minute walk away from my apartment) and started walking in the direction he had indicated.  When I asked for more directions, the directions-givers told me I was going the wrong direction. I turned around. I retraced my steps, asked for more directions, and they told me I needed to go the direction I had originally gone!  These people seemed more trustworthy, and they agreed with the member, so I turned around again. Everyone told me it was way too far to walk with suitcases and that I should catch a bus for a few stops. People underestimate missionary walking ability, but I decided to take that advice so as not to be too late.  I took a bus four stops (Four stops in the wrong direction!) and got off. Nobody knew where the road I was looking for was. Finally I found a very nice person who walked with me to the right road and helped me with one of the suitcases. He didn’t want a visit, but hey, I planted a seed and he said he would look up the Book of Mormon.  It took a while, but I got there. Then I walked up the dirt road looking for the right number. I walked for a long time and got more and more perplexed because the numbers were out of order. Nobody knew where my apartment was. Finally someone who lived there told me I had already passed it (cue more ominous wrong-advice music). 

In this picture you can see the Candeias sign and the beware of sharks sign. It says not to swim there but no one pays attention to it!  Sharks are a very real danger in Recife, but not quite real enough to stop people from going.

I turned around, and retraced my steps for a while in the other direction without success.  I began to see that there is a difference between “take the suitcases you can carry” [the advice they give prospective missionaries] and “take the suitcases you can drag up a soft dirt road on a very hot day.”  I am very grateful that my suitcases are good and that it didn’t rain. The next day that same road was full of water — that would have been worse! But I continued on, only to run into the same advice-giver who told me he had gone to get his phone because he could see I was lost.  He looked it up on Google maps (technology!) only to figure out that I had not passed it. In fact my apartment was farther than I had originally walked, so I had retraced my steps in vain again. He walked back up the street with me and helped me with a suitcase (blessings). We fiiinally got there, and he left.  Too bad that he sent me the wrong direction, but good he was nice enough to help me afterwards. 

I used the intercom to call my apartment but no one answered, so I walked up the street to borrow someone’s phone.  After trying to use the ancient phone without success, I saw someone opening the apartment gate. I hurried back, and luckily she had already seen missionaries there and let me in.  Apparently the intercom is broken and if you shout people hear you. Anyway, I got there more than an hour late but safe and sound. I later saw the chapel basically around the corner from my apartment — I had spent over an hour walking back (and retracing my steps only to turn around again) the four bus stops I retraced away from the chapel.  But all’s well that ends well! I heartily recommend that someone make an Amazing Race challenge or a tv show that involves people who have to do missionary-style transfers with suitcases, wrong directions, and without smartphones. It would be hilarious!

I can see the beach from here!  It is not as close as it was when I went to Pina, but I get to stay here!  In other non-missionary-work related news, there is a Madoska ice cream store here (there was one in Gravatá too) which I plan to make use of later today! 

I had been under the impression that I might be in an area with much more of a small-city vibe.  Ha ha, Candeias is a neighborhood of Jaboatao dos Guararapes which is right next to Recife.  Full of skyscrapers, several huge supermarkets.  Not a small-town vibe! So many skyscrapers. It is much smaller than Casa Forte, which is a blessing; hopefully I will learn the area faster.  When I manage to learn an area more-or-less I always think “Wow, why didn’t I just make an effort to memorize the roads faster?” But when I get to a new area I remember why–nothing is familiar!  Harder to memorize. Also there are many fewer road signs here than in Casa Forte — too bad. But I have high hopes of memorizing here faster. We will see how it goes.

There is a part of town that looks a little like the less-skyscrapery Santa Isabel neighborhood in Casa Forte, but it is much smaller.  We spent much more of our time in the skyscraper-y part of the city this week than I had spent in Casa Forte. A lot of very deserted roads.  People come out at 5:00 to walk their dogs but before that it is pretty hard to do street contacts. We are often literally the only people I can see!  It is strange. We will have to see what we do about that — the houses are a bit imposing to go door-knocking — Brazilians love gates in front of the house, and here the gates are huge walls with intercoms.   It seemed like people were less interested in the street contacts here than in Casa Forte as well, but we still managed to get several new investigators. Sister Anaya said this week was better than last transfer for finding new people, so hopefully it continues that way!  We also managed to find some people at home (always a struggle) and teach some first lessons as well. We marked two new people, Amanda* and Murilo, so that was great.  

Davi (60ish years old) was marked for baptism last week, but when I went to meet him for the first time he opened the door very, very drunk.  Then we went back to see him a different day and — still drunk. That was sad, because he had said he had given up alcohol, but it didn’t work out.  He lives alone, but right next to a bar and has a lot of friends that call him to drink. But afterwards we found him sober. He said he wanted to apologize to us, so we explained that really he needed to repent and apologize to God.  He understood, and said he was excited to get baptized. Ever since he has talked about how excited he is to be baptized. On Sunday he asked us why the bishop hadn’t announced his baptism — a good sign! No one else managed to go to church, but he did, which was great!  The other people said they should be able to go next week. He told us that on Saturday he had been working with some friends who were drinking. They invited him many times, but he told them he didn’t want to drink because he wanted to get baptized! We fasted with him yesterday so that he could be strengthened against temptation and for everything to work out for his baptism.  Hopefully everything goes well!  

Interestingly, there are a lot of people from the religion Espiritismo here.  I think service-oriented, tolerant, educated, better-off people are especially attracted to this religion.  Because it is a big city there are a lot more well-off and highly educated people here. Espiritismo has some interesting points (some of them believe in reincarnation and things like spiritual hospitals where mediums talk to spirits to help fix your spiritual problems).  One thing I admire is that many espíritas (people from this religion) are very, very charitable. They are very self-motivated to look for every service opportunity; something I would like to learn. 

This reminds me of a quote from the Teachings of George Albert Smith book I read this week:

First of all, we are asking all you fine people over here to keep all the glorious truths that you have acquired in your churches, that you have absorbed from your scriptures, keep all that. . . keep all the love and the beauty that is in your heart from having lived in so beautiful and wonderful a land. … That is all a part of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Then let us sit down and share with you some of the things that have not yet come into your lives that have enriched our lives and made us happy.

We are also teaching a couple that have been investigating for a while, Rodrigo and Larissa. Ronald has a lot of questions about many different things in the church.  He is worried that there are a lot of religions and he might want to receive an answer so much that he might end up deceiving himself and getting a false emotional answer. He is afraid to pray because of this.  We told him about the importance of prayer and acting with faith to receive guidance. 

2 Nephi 32:3-5, 8-9

3 Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do.

4 Wherefore, now after I have spoken these words, if ye cannot understand them it will be because ye ask not, neither do ye knock; wherefore, ye are not brought into the light, but must perish in the dark.

5 For behold, again I say unto you that if ye will enter in by the way, and receive the Holy Ghost, it will show unto you all things what ye should do.

. . .

8 And now, my beloved brethren, I perceive that ye ponder still in your hearts; and it grieveth me that I must speak concerning this thing. For if ye would hearken unto the Spirit which teacheth a man to pray, ye would know that ye must pray; for the evil spirit teacheth not a man to pray, but teacheth him that he must not pray.

9 But behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul.

Sister Anaya read the Book of Mormon scripture about Laman and Lemuel — they complain that God hadn’t talked to them but they hadn’t asked!  

Next week we are going to go to new leader training conference and the mission council.  We are about two hours from the mission office (new leader training) and 3-ish from the mission home (mission council) so it will be an adventure.  

*All investigators names are changed–as always

I can do all things through Christ–Goodbye to Casa Forte

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Sister Barros and Sister Faulconer at the mission office, Courtesy Sister Lori Houseman

Good news: Willian* still wants to get baptized. He is reading the scriptures and praying every day! We managed to follow up with a couple more of our contacts than usual this week, which was good. Some of them seem to have potential. We also got a cool reference from the elders today — someone stopped them on the street and asked how to visit the church!

We really thought Willian would get baptized this week but it did not work out. We saw him several times, we finally managed to take a member there, and he said he was excited! He has been saying he wanted to be baptized for a while! We have been teaching him for more than three months. On Friday we got a baptismal jumpsuit and carried it around only to get a call from him. I immediately knew this was a bad sign but hoped he was just calling to double check his interview time. Nope. His mom is going through some difficulties and asked him not to get baptized. He was going to get baptized anyway, but decided to wait in order to help her out. So anyone who can offer prayers on behalf of Willian’s mom and Willian would be greatly appreciated.

We have an investigator, Erick, who went to church two weeks ago. He is from the religion “Spiritualism” or “Kardecismo” which is related to the teachings of Allan Kardec. Everyone thinks I ought to know who this is because he is American but I had never heard of him. Anyway, one thing to admire about spiritualism is that it is very focused on charity. Erick was very focused on getting answers through dreams. We tried a lot to help him understand that you could get an answer in a dream but it could also come in a variety of other ways. We thought we hadn’t had any success, but the other day he said he got an answer reading the Book of Mormon that it is true! Unfortunately he hasn’t gone to church these past two weeks because he likes to stay up late reading and then doesn’t feel like going to church until nighttime. He reads and studies a lot and is very excited about sharing his finds with us. We are working on having a balance between us sharing about the gospel and hearing about his opinions as well. Hopefully he goes to church this Sunday.

Newsy news:
I am going to be a sister training leader in Candeias. It is a bairro (neighborhood) in the city of Jaboatão. I will go there this Wednesday. It is 2-3 hours from here. Apparently you can see the sea in Candeias! I am very excited. I always thought it would be super cool to see the sea! That means my companion and I will be in charge of doing divisions with a couple of companionships of sisters in the Litoral zone. Also we will present something at the zone conferences. My companion will either be Sister Anaya (Mexico) or sister Vargas (Sao Paulo). Sister Vargas trained sister Barros, so that would be funny. Probably it will be Sister Anaya because she is newer in the area, but I won’t know until Wednesday! I am sure both of them are great. Next week I will go to new leader training and afterwards the mission leadership council. I am nervous but I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me!

Today I said goodbye to Casa Forte at Pura Vida, the vegan shop I went to a while ago. I am going to have to figure out how to make jackfruit coxinhas at home. Tasty tasty.

Aline, the investigator I talked about the other week, has disappeared. We keep calling her and going to her house but only manage to talk to her mother! Sad, but hopefully she is just busy and it works out in the future. Also, the only person who went to church was Viviane. That was sad, but it is great that she always goes to church.

One scripture that really helped me out this week was Alma 8. Alma goes from a city where he baptizes tons of people to a city where no one is interested in the gospel. He pours out his soul praying for and caring about the people but they spit on him and cast him out of the city.

14 And it came to pass that while he was journeying thither, being weighed down with sorrow, wading through much tribulation and anguish of soul, because of the wickedness of the people who were in the city of Ammonihah, it came to pass while Alma was thus weighed down with sorrow, behold an angel of the Lord appeared unto him, saying:
15 Blessed art thou, Alma; therefore, lift up thy head and rejoice, for thou hast great cause to rejoice; for thou hast been faithful in keeping the commandments of God from the time which thou receivedst thy first message from him. Behold, I am he that delivered it unto you.

Alma 8:14-15

A good reminder of the importance of caring about people, praying fervently, and being obedient. Also the importance of joy — I hope I can always be joyful for the same reasons as Alma — because I have been faithful in keeping the commandments of God. Reminds me of Elder Eyring’s talk: Holiness and the Plan of Happiness. It is great! Also the Come, Follow-Me this week is wonderful and talks a lot about joy in trials as well.

*Names of investigators are always changed

Every Day is a Good Day

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It’s hard to have a better week than general conference week!  I can’t believe it´s October general conference already. I remember watching last October’s conference in the CTM, and then watching in April with Sister M. Ribeiro.  April doesn’t seem six months ago!  Conference was great. I am excited to study the talks again! 

I was extremely excited to find out about the change to the policy on witnesses.  A tender mercy to hear about the change from my Mom in my birthday call to her (not to mention the tender mercy of being able to use webcams and call with more frequency!!).  I always hope people will progress to baptism, because it is an essential saving ordinance.  Being able to possibly witness such a baptism only adds to that hope!

There were many wonderful talks.  I especially loved the talks about the importance of joy as well as missionary work.  As a long-time fan of The Hobbit, I was also a fan of President Uchtdorf’s talk. On the subject of joy, today I read part of the book about President Hinckley as a prophet. There was a quote about how every day in missionary work is a good day. Apparently he shook his companion´s hand and said “Today will be a good day” when they left and “Today was a good day” every day when they got home.  I guess that’s true in life too — every day is a good day.

President Nelson’s talk reminded me of how many blessings we have.  What a blessing not to go hungry — and a huge responsibility to help those who are!  I thought it was interesting that he didn’t invite us to do anything as part of the talk.  But I think there was an inherent invitation to act.  Those statistics about hunger are an invitation to act!

Although we had more people than normal who said they would go to conference, we did not have a lot of actual success.  But Ana Luiza went to church!  Ana Luiza is a 12-year-old who I met a while ago with Sister Sousa.  A different missionary later saw her in his area and contacted  her.  She told him she was already being taught!  Because I ended up working in two areas and she doesn’t spend much time at home, we didn’t manage to see her for a while.  But now we are teaching her again and she went to conference!  Also, she became ecstatic upon receiving a Book of Mormon after having read part of the pamphlet of excerpts on the Book of Mormon: “I’m not managing to believe you are giving me a Book of Mormon!”

Aline did turn out to be a great investigator.  She is interested and kept all of her invitations. She didn’t go to conference and we aren’t sure why, but hopefully everything goes well this week!

We are also teaching Ana Carolina and her family.  Ana Carolina became excited about the Book of Mormon in our contact with her.  She said it would be her birthday present because we promised to give her one on our visit the day after her birthday.  We are also teaching her brother and mother.  She almost went to conference but was sick the day of.  She had some questions about how Joseph Smith could have seen God.  There is  lot of confusion about this here–people think that no one could see God.  That kind of makes sense, except that the Bible also says that Moses spoke to God face to face and that John saw God and Christ in a vision, just like Joseph Smith did. That helped her with those concerns, although she still has doubts about prophets.  But she hadn’t read the Book of Mormon yet, so I think it will help a lot.  Also we invited her to watch conference online so I hope that works out!

This week we are going to do a service project and help Monique (the missionary’s mom) paint and clean her house.

This week it has been getting hotter every day.  It is not winter anymore; not even close!  People keep telling us it will just get hotter!  Next week is transfers — I will find out if I will be in Recife in January (i.e., hot hot hot hot hot) or somewhere else!  It is inspiring to hear President Houseman talk about how he receives revelation to transfer missionaries.  I´ll go where He wants me to go —- o´er hill or beach!