THE TALE OF TWO MACKENSON'S

The Tale of the Two Mackenson´s

Okay, so we received a reference this week from a member for a man named Mackenson.  We went to visit him, and discovered that he arrived in Brazil from Haiti about 5 months ago, and hardly speaks any Portuguese.  It was a huge struggle to talk to him, because he understood practically nothing.  After about an hour and a half talking to him, we finally got it sorted out that we would arrange a ride for him to come visit church with us this Sunday.  There´s a recent convert named Antonio that is from Haiti as well, and we arranged with him to go and pick Mackenson up on Sunday, and act as translator during the meeting.  All was well.

NOT

Sunday morning, about half an hour before church, we called Antonio to check that he remembered that he offered to go pick up Mackenson, and he said yes, and that he was driving there at that moment.  Fast forward to about ten minutes before the meeting, and they haven´t arrived yet.  We called again, and Antonio told us that he found Mackenson and had just pulled up outside the chapel.  But, he started asking Sister Willard what Mackenson looked like, because he wasn´t sure if he´d found the right person.  Thoroughly bewildered, Sister Willard described him, and Antonio seemed a little more confident, but asked that we come out to his car to check.  We went out to his car, and THE GUY IN HIS CAR WAS NOT MACKENSON.  Antonio went to the wrong neighborhood, saw a Haitian guy standing outside a house with a bible in his hand, asked if the guy´s name was Mackenson, which it was, and told him to get in his car because the missionaries were waiting at the church for him.  Mackenson #2 was like, okay, why not, and GOT IN ANTONIO´S CAR TO GO TO CHURCH.   What are the odds!  

We ended up being late for church because we had to go with Antonio to go find the Mackenson that we actually arranged a ride for.  It would have been a great conversion story for the Mackenson #2, but he was like, well this was weird but I´m just going to take the ônibus home now, and left.  I´ve been laughing about it every time I think about it because that entire situation was so bizarre.

Divisãos

We had splits this week with our Sister Training Leaders.  Their house is tiny, and they already have a trio living there.  We ended up pushing the two beds together so three of the sisters could sleep there, and another Sister and I slept on mattresses on the floor.  They threw a little party for me since my birthday was the day before, so that was fun.  They made cake and sang to me in Portuguese.  

Birthday

I made it around the sun again!  I can now legally enter bars in the USA!  Wahoo!  I actually did have a good birthday, even though we worked like normal.  I received a lot of sweet birthday wishes and a package from home, so it was pretty awesome.  It was weird to think this is the second birthday in a row that I've been in another country instead of celebrating back at home.  I missed you guys, but I was feeling the love, so it´s all good.

Festa Julinho

We had a bit of a field trip Friday night, because our ward was doing a combined activity with another ward.  We had to get permission to leave our area, because the festa was at the chapel in the elder´s area, but we went.  There were a ton of people there, so we spent the night trying to make contacts.  It was a bit of a struggle, because we had no idea who was a member and who wasn´t, and the music was loud, but we tried.  They had a barbeque thing going at one spot, where they had stuck these spit things in the ground, stuck the meat pieces on them, and built a ring of fires (cue Johnny Cash) around them.  I´ve never seen meat cooked that way before, but it was pretty awesome.

That´s all for this week, love you guys!

Sister Sheffer

There's a little river pretty close to our house, and one day for break we decided we wanted to take cheesy photos so we climbed down and were doing that.  Sister Willard suddenly started screaming bloody murder because that spider was about a foot away from her face.  After our heart rates returned to normal we took some pictures of it.