Wk 92 - Weekly Report: Just for you Mom

someones wall

domingos gave me this shirt

the shirt...

me and irapoã

sushi

my new bike

Area: Buenos Aires 
Companion: Elder De Los Santos

I know how you feel mom... almost every week that passes i can say,
man im glad that week is over. It is exhausting. But, it was good to
hear from ya and see some pics... man i miss camping! Good fresh
mountain air is super good. Looks like baseball is doin good and all
and school is coming to an end! Thats pretty awesome....

Well my week was a little different than yours... There was a
transfer, but everyone in my district stayed... so for me nothin has
changed. Tuesday was a holiday though which made it pretty boring to
work.. i swear there was not a single sole that passed us on our way
to lunch. Holidays here is an im going to travel or lock myself in my
room and sleep all day type deal... but we had a cool lunch with some
members named frances and névia. We watched him pretend fight with his
sons and some boxing gloves (frances trains in some fighting sports)
and it was super funny. We passed by domingos´s house and he gave me
that cool shirt from the army. He gives a shirt to everyone that
passes in the area and you get to choose what you want him to write on
it... turned out pretty sweet. he offered me a pare of the army
boots... but is that worth it?? haha i dont know if i would use
them... but im getting ready to be a soldier here in teresina haha. We
spent the day just looking for addresses and walking... we saw a man
playing the accordion in front of his house so we went and talked to
him... that was kind of a bad idea cause he like offered us smoke
tobacco stuff to sniff up our nose, talked a lot about how he cheats
on his wife and just lots of crazy stuff.... finally we just said, we
gotta go... and left. But he was a nice man and accepted us in an
instant... its just sad to see that he doesnt see a way out of that
type of life.

Wednesday we had lunch at Jeans house which is always awesome... he´s
a good guy and his parents are cool non-members. We ended up splitting
up and i went with elder lima while elder donizete went with my comp
to the eye doctor. We visited a cool man named Irapoã. That morning i
had met a man in the street that stopped to talk to us. It looks like
on sunday he was passing the church and entered to see what it was
like. It was stake conference at the moment and he watched it all and
even stayed after till 3 pm to whatch a baptism. he walked with us a
ways and later we marked to meet him at his house. So it is close to
my area, but in elder lima´s area, so i went with him. This man is
incredible. he is from the south, worked in Florida for some years
repairing airplanes and his family completely abanded him... We taught
him quickly about the restoration in his little house because he lives
alone, and he had the book of mormon and all of the pamphlets and
other things that president dias gave to him all spread out on his bed
and all marked up because he was reading. He really values his family
and wants a family in his life. He immediately loved the church after
he was kicked out of a reading group in the catholic church for some
deficiancy to read, he stopped in many other churches and never felt
to good about it. He came into our church and immediately wanted to be
a part. He asked us during the lesson if it was possible for him to be
baptized and join the church..... I dont know if you know, but as a
misisonary there is nothing more rewarding you can hear as a
misisonary. Even though he isnt in my area and wont be my baptism, i
feel priveleged to witness real people prepared by God
to hear the message of the restoration. On thursday we will go to his
baptism and he asked president Dias to do it... Should be very cool.

Thursday morning we went to go search for glasses for my comp... they
are expensive! im not excited cuz i think ill need to buy a pair of
glasses just to take to school or something... i realized i have a
little difficulty reading for example a whiteboard form a distance...
but its not bad. We didnt have lunch that day so we went home to make
it... there were some missionaries there because a one of them was
sick...so i went with the comp that wasnt sick to get something to
eat. Anyway that took a little while but we got to work and went to
visit Milton who is the investigator that from the start let us in
super easily, we visited Levy and lastly we visited marcos and Raquel.
They are doing good and i hope we can help them get married... Getting
married seems to be the big problem recently-for marcos and raquel and
milton and juliana.

Friday i hit 21 months on the mish... i cant believe how long ive been
here and neither how i got this far. We had a good day with a
division. I went with domingos and my comp went with another member.
Me and domingos went to visit some people that i found in the area
book that looked like they had been forgotten about... we ended up
meeting a new family that one year ago when they were being taught
they werent married, but now they are. So that was cool. We visited a
couple other people and some members that havent gone to church for a
few weeks then at night we met up with elder lima because it was his
birthday. We ate some sushi and drank some coke.... good times.

Saturday we went early to miltons house to do a service project. We
helped him weed infront of his house and clean out the gutter... i
wish i had a before and after pick, but i only have an after... Oh
well. It was cool cuz it was the first time we met his mom and she
came to church with us on sunday. We had lunch with the old bishop of
the Horto ward... there was american that was there that is from Cali
but studies at BYU. He passed in the fortaleza mission some 5 years
ago but met a girl on the internet and came back to meet her better
and they will get married... interesting. We took a shower after the
service project and got to work. It wasnt a super productive day other
than the service project but we met some new people and committed them
to come to church with us next week.

Sunday we had a decent turn out of investigators with milton and his
mom and also carol. Carol is super close to being baptized, i will let
you know if anything happens this week. After church i had elder
donizete talk to her as kind of a baptismal interview and he made some
goals with her for this week. anyway, we had a great lunch even though
it was pretty far away, then we didnt have much till at night we
talked to marcos and raquel. So it was a good finish to the week.

today we got up and cleaned the entire house! it was a deep clean in
our room and all... so that was cool. haha mom i cant wait to get back
and help you out. i dont like doing a deep clean here just knowing
that in a few weeks im gonna leave the house to go to another one.

anyway, I am hoping for some success soon cause im getting a little
discouraged with this area... gotta keep going. im still doing good
and all... thats crazy how fast time is going! give ryan a hug for me
and send me some other pics and all of the baby and what not! im
excited to talk to you on sunday!

até mais,

Élder Smoot