Back To School (Serviço) --> Week 26

Good morning everyone! I literally have no time to write this email this week, because we're playing soccer at 6:30am today. But don't worry, I woke up an hour early for y'all. 


To sum up this week perfectly, it was probably the hardest that I've worked in my life, and I saw the least amount of results. But that's the life of a missionary. Let's get right into it.


SPIRITUAL THOUGHT


We brought along a friend from church one day to help us teach a couple lessons. We had a few pretty quality lessons and I saw his testimony grow so much throughout the day.


At one point, we made a pretty routine contact on the road, handed out a book of mormon, and shared our testimonies. After the contact, our friend came up to me and told me that he felt the holy ghost (spirit/love of God) so much during our contact. 


That got my thinking how much of a privilege it is to be a missionary. That spiritual environment had become a norm for us, but at the same time, I realized that I had begun to lose focus on the spirit. 


I set a goal this week to focus more on the feelings and promptings of the spirit, especially in our contacts and lessons. And I invite all of you to create a environment and atmosphere in your lives that invites the holy ghost!! (If this was confusing, I have no time and I'll explain more next week)


HIGHLIGHTS


- As the district leader here on the mission, I have the priviledge of leading a group of eight missionaries. I check in on them periodically, set goals, and hold meetings once a week. I also have the priviledge of conducting baptismal interviews with those who are ready to be baptized. Well, this week my district decided to baptize like crazy and I had to conduct six baptismal interviews in two days. There's nothing like asking the same questions and receiving the same answers for four hours straight. But nonetheless, I love the opportunity to play a small part in the path to salvation of these people. 


- There were many instances this week where we would walk past someone in the street, and I would feel a strong prompting to turn around, chase down someone, and talk to them. Well this week, I acted on all of those prompting and met so many really cool people who are going through many tough situations (death in the family, drugs, abuse, near death experiences, etc). I've heard it all this week. Unfortunately, these circumstances usually hold back these people from progressing, but I know that God is placing these people in our path for a reason. I know that simple testimony, prayer, or reading of the scriptures with them can change the outlook of their life.


- Yesterday we scheduled a lesson with this man that we met on the street the other day. We get there, he lets us in, is super nice, we give the first half of the lesson, and then he goes on for over an hour attacking our believes. He's referencing a million bible passages and condemning these two 20 year old missionaries. Luckily he was a portuguese professor and was using big words that I don't know, so I didn't understand too much, and my companion is new here, so we kinda just sat there, bore of testimonies, and let this man try to rip into our souls.


- We participated in a service project this week where we woke up at 5am, and cleared out an entire school yard of brush, weeds, trash, and trees. We spent 5 hours using hoes, shovels, and machettes, cleaning up this jungle of a mess for the first day of school. It was about a million degrees, there were about two million ants crawling up my legs, and I killed about three million cockroaches that we huddled together in the pile of coconuts. Felt like I was back at school. :)


- Had an exchange this week where I served in another area for a day. Highlights: Ate a meter long pizza one night. Absolutely destroyed me. And I got two hours of sleep that night. Doesn't help that the room was a sauna, airplanes flew over the house every hour, and there was a rooster cock-a-doodle-dooing all night long.


- Saw another triantula this week :(  


Love you guys!! Have a great week!!


Elder Ware




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