And the Church Says????

Leaders of Strange Names

Our district hasn´t changed too much this transfer.  The dupla with our district leader got moved to another district, and one of the elders from the remaining duplas was called to be the district leader.  His name is Elder Schenewark.  Sister Mareski and I had to actually learn how to say his name now that he´s our LD, because until now we´ve been calling him Elder Shakira. 

BUT WAIT, THERE´S MORE!  Elder Schenewark is a trainer for an Elder who arrived at the same time as Sister Mareski, and his companion´s name is Elder Jesus.  

 You would not believe the amount of jokes that are made about Elder Jesus´s name.  The hymn The Lord is My Light in Portuguese has the lyrics ´Jesus minha luz´, and every time Elder Schenewark addresses Elder Jesus, he sings that line.  Anytime someone reads a scripture/talks about/references anything about Jesus Cristo (that doesn´t specifically say Jesus `Christ´), Elder Jesus just looks off into the distance, nods proudly, and wipes at his eyes.  Anytime his companion sees him doing any of these things he´ll stop whatever he´s saying to say ``Not you, Elder`` and then continue.  

And the Church Says?

Other funny thing that happens during District Meeting, is that we´ve gotten into the habit of saying ``E a igreja diz?`` any time anyone makes a strong statement, and everyone responding ``Amen!´´  But, it´s gotten to the point where we say it for anything, not necessarily spiritual stuff.  

FOR EXAMPLE: Elder Schenewark was sharing his doctrinal message of the week and read two scriptures from Matthew.  He was just expounding on them and the following happened.

Elder S: If you´ll look at the end of verse 44, you´ll see that it talks about . . .(I forget what it was)

Half of the District: That´s at the beginning of verse 45.

Elder S: No it´s not.

1/2 the District: Yes it is.

*Flurry of comparing Bibles*

Elder S: Okay, everyone with the Bible different from mine, raise up your Bibles.

*Raising of Bibles*

Elder S: All right, everyone with that Bible, you´re all going to inferno.   And the church says?

Everyone: AMEN!

So basically, my district meetings every week are hilarious.  

Mudar de Casa

So, we finally had someone come and inspect our water/mold problem, and we may be moving to a different house this week or the next so that the owners can do the maintenance that it needs.  So that´s exciting!

Karaoke Night

Our ward had an party last Friday for everyone who had a birthday during September.  Rxxxn and Bxxxxe, the Haitian couple, Bxxxxxa, one of their friends, Cxx, the recent convert, a guy named Mxxxxs that we met on the street and invited to the activity, and Exxxxxxa and her three kids (who we met and started teaching this week) all showed up.  So, it was awesome!  There was karaoke, and Cxx, who doesn´t speak much Portuguese, was super into it.  He´d just pick a word in Portuguese that the other person singing would say, and chant it over and over with intermittent beatboxing, and it was actually pretty good.  

The Work

The work hasn´t been great for quite a bit.  A lot of the people we teach will just drop off the face of the earth, and we´ve been having trouble keeping a lot of the recent converts stay active.  I´m trying to change up how I teach and improve all the stuff that I´m still lacking, but it can be discouraging at times.  Sometimes I think about all the things that I need to do/improve/change/resolve and I just feel kind of numb, like I don´t have the strength to even move.  It gets really overwhelming really fast.  But, at the same time, I get up every day and keep going because the work is not going to wait for me to be a perfect missionary, and I need to at least try to keep up and do my part.  I´ve been relearning the importance of prayer and my relationship with my Pai Celestial recently though, so that´s good.  I have a lot of hope for some of the new people we´ve started teaching these last few weeks as well, so we´ll see how it goes.

That´s all for this week.  Love you guys, and have a great week!

1-3: Irma Rose found what I´m 98% sure is a possum in her house.  He was just a bebe, so he was very cute and cuddly.  

4: Us and Bxxxxe at the ward karaoke party.

5-6: Irma Bxxx gave us a cake, and we decided to share it with one of the members who lives close, since we knew we´d eat the whole thing in an unhealthy amount of time if we didn´t share.  They gave us a plate of meat in return