So the most important thing is to fill you in on my new Companion Sister de Luz. She is from Cape Verde and doesn’t speak any English. Sometimes she even forgets or doesn’t know words in Portuguese, because they speak variations of Criolle (not sure of the spelling) on the islands. It is super having someone who doesn’t speak English as I speak Portuguese all the time now and it is feeling a little more comfortable. It can be frustrating not to speak English, but luckily the other sisters are still in the house, if I get annoyed and just want to say something in English or need something confirmed. The hardest thing is being sure I have understood someone correctly. Usually I have, but I just don`t feel certain. Anyway, she is super bubbly. She is so friendly with people that it immediately puts them at ease and they feel like talking to us. We’re not exactly the same or anything, but somehow in an indescribable way we seem to be more on the same page. She sets realistic goals, works hard to obtain them and realises the spirit of the law is more important than the letter. An example of this is that we have goals as a mission as a baseline for our own, so we are meant to contact 50 new people every day and this is like the fall back goal because it really doesn’t rely on any one but you. However, we have goals for lessons which are harder to realise, but in our opinion more important. Thus we put more effort into getting 3 lessons in a day even if we only talk to 20 people. She is also a great cook, so we are having great meals!
It has rained non-stop all week. I am not kidding. I have been living in the spotty welly boots I found in the apartment, that was a pretty sight during sacrament meeting in the chapel on Sunday. We have managed to break 2 new umbrellas already, because it is a battle against the wind! However, I think a couple of people let us in just because they saw how bedraggled we looked, so cool times!
We found so many new people this week, hopefully they will progress. One is a student, Malfalda, who loved the first lesson and is really curious about a prophet on the earth today, so we will take pictures and talks about that. Another is José, who was actually there on our return appointment (always exciting!) and surprised us with a Book of Mormon, because missionaries had given him one 8 years ago. He then proceeded to give us a tour of his massive and beautiful house with all the encyclopaedias and travel books in his study and his shrine to some saints. We didn’t get to say a lot, but he was fun to visit. We also managed to visit the family I found with Sister Campos, they are just lovely. Marinda is just like me - says she gets tired of people messing around in school and bosses the family about (she wanted to assign herself to say both prayers!) Julie is the first person who has actually read the Book of Mormon between visits - 10 whole chapters and says she is very interested by what she is reading. YAY!!!! Hopefully we can get a family from the ward to teach them with us because they are so special!!! It was quite a miracle we found them again too, because I spent half an hour on google maps trying to find the address and couldn’t. I asked a member who said she had an idea where it was, took us on a tour of the city to help us out and then we managed to find the road together!
So the hardest thing has been the pressure I put on myself this week. Sister De Luz is great at speaking and I feel like it is my job to get us to the people as soon as possible. However, I am constantly doubting my ability to find people I’ve visited before and am terrible at describing places if I am trying to direct a member to meet us! It’s hard when your only landmarks are “that investigator you’ve never met’s house”! It has been very stressful, because I hate letting people down - members that graciously agree to teach with us and investigators we make appointments with.
We had a long chat with a 7th Day Adventist. In the beginning she said she had doubts about her own religion, but it was the most aligned with her thoughts. Then she spends the rest of the meeting trying to CONVERT US with repeated discussion of how Saturday is the Sabbath, it didn’t change with Jesus’s Resurrection and we can’t eat pork (even though she agrees that Jesus fulfilled the Law of Moses). Apparently, we made a return appointment. Hmm....
We also had a lesson on someone’s floor because she’s a student and that’s how we role!
Sister De Luz has also shown me some cool teaching tools, eg. why prophets are necessary. If my hand is God and your hand is the people and you close your eyes, because we can’t see God can you follow my hand? But if we have a pen between us (signifying a prophet) it’s easy right?
Sister Morinho called me!!! I was so surprised to hear when she said “so I’m in Braintree” and I just thought what?? How??? I love feeling part of this church network!!! I am beginning to see that if we did have as many dinner appointments as the missionaries back home, we would really struggle to fit our investigators in, especially as the evening is usually when they are available and for them to progress we try and visit them several times a week. I am really seeing the importance and value of service. It was lovely, actually the members felt able to call us (first time someone has tried to contact us!) and ask us to help them clean the chapel, because there was only 3 of them. It was a lovely feeling to help them. Also, great when I was able to buy my companion some medication (she is struggling to adjust to the change in weather from Maderia) when her card wouldn’t work. We are definitely blessed with happiness when we serve.
It has rained non-stop all week. I am not kidding. I have been living in the spotty welly boots I found in the apartment, that was a pretty sight during sacrament meeting in the chapel on Sunday. We have managed to break 2 new umbrellas already, because it is a battle against the wind! However, I think a couple of people let us in just because they saw how bedraggled we looked, so cool times!
We found so many new people this week, hopefully they will progress. One is a student, Malfalda, who loved the first lesson and is really curious about a prophet on the earth today, so we will take pictures and talks about that. Another is José, who was actually there on our return appointment (always exciting!) and surprised us with a Book of Mormon, because missionaries had given him one 8 years ago. He then proceeded to give us a tour of his massive and beautiful house with all the encyclopaedias and travel books in his study and his shrine to some saints. We didn’t get to say a lot, but he was fun to visit. We also managed to visit the family I found with Sister Campos, they are just lovely. Marinda is just like me - says she gets tired of people messing around in school and bosses the family about (she wanted to assign herself to say both prayers!) Julie is the first person who has actually read the Book of Mormon between visits - 10 whole chapters and says she is very interested by what she is reading. YAY!!!! Hopefully we can get a family from the ward to teach them with us because they are so special!!! It was quite a miracle we found them again too, because I spent half an hour on google maps trying to find the address and couldn’t. I asked a member who said she had an idea where it was, took us on a tour of the city to help us out and then we managed to find the road together!
So the hardest thing has been the pressure I put on myself this week. Sister De Luz is great at speaking and I feel like it is my job to get us to the people as soon as possible. However, I am constantly doubting my ability to find people I’ve visited before and am terrible at describing places if I am trying to direct a member to meet us! It’s hard when your only landmarks are “that investigator you’ve never met’s house”! It has been very stressful, because I hate letting people down - members that graciously agree to teach with us and investigators we make appointments with.
We had a long chat with a 7th Day Adventist. In the beginning she said she had doubts about her own religion, but it was the most aligned with her thoughts. Then she spends the rest of the meeting trying to CONVERT US with repeated discussion of how Saturday is the Sabbath, it didn’t change with Jesus’s Resurrection and we can’t eat pork (even though she agrees that Jesus fulfilled the Law of Moses). Apparently, we made a return appointment. Hmm....
We also had a lesson on someone’s floor because she’s a student and that’s how we role!
Sister De Luz has also shown me some cool teaching tools, eg. why prophets are necessary. If my hand is God and your hand is the people and you close your eyes, because we can’t see God can you follow my hand? But if we have a pen between us (signifying a prophet) it’s easy right?
Sister Morinho called me!!! I was so surprised to hear when she said “so I’m in Braintree” and I just thought what?? How??? I love feeling part of this church network!!! I am beginning to see that if we did have as many dinner appointments as the missionaries back home, we would really struggle to fit our investigators in, especially as the evening is usually when they are available and for them to progress we try and visit them several times a week. I am really seeing the importance and value of service. It was lovely, actually the members felt able to call us (first time someone has tried to contact us!) and ask us to help them clean the chapel, because there was only 3 of them. It was a lovely feeling to help them. Also, great when I was able to buy my companion some medication (she is struggling to adjust to the change in weather from Maderia) when her card wouldn’t work. We are definitely blessed with happiness when we serve.