Hello from Atibaia!

New Area: Atibaia

Hello from Atibaia, a land of hills and really expensive ônibuses.  My new companion is Sister Alencar, she´s from Pernambuco and just finished her first 12 weeks.  We´re living in an apartment with another dupla, Sister Ponciono (from Rio) and Sister Reinoso (from Buenos Aires).  Sister Ponciano was my roommate in the CTM, and I´m glad that my Portuguese has improved to the point that I can now understand her, even though she has a very thick accent.  Sister Reinoso is being trained by Sister Ponciono, and makes me laugh because she is so tiny.  The top of her head doesn't clear my shoulder, it´s hilarious.

New Investigators

Hxxxxxy.  We went to Hxxxxxy´s house with the intent to visit with her mother, but as her mother was sleeping, we visited with her 12 year old daughter Hxxxxxy instead and gave the first lesson.  It was a little awkward, because she seemed restless the whole time, and didn't appear to be very interested in what we were saying.  We marked to come back a few days later, and returned with the expectation that we would cut her from our teaching pool, only for her to tell us that she´d been taking her Book of Mormon to school with her, and had read what we'd left her, as well as the first five or six chapters of the Book of Mormon.  A little stunned, we gave another lesson and invited her to church with us.  She agreed and we told her we´d pass by before the meeting.  

When we got there, her father seemed surprised to see us and told us that he was pretty sure Hxxxxxy was sleeping.  I felt my slightly raised expectations drop and we were about to leave when Hxxxxxy opened the door, in church dress, and told us that she was almost ready, and that she just needed to get her shoes.  It was a little awkward as we waited, because we could hear her mom yelling at her through the door, because Hxxxxxy apparently did not advise her parents that she was going to leave, but she reappeared after a minute or two, completely calm, and went to church with us.  She stayed for the entire meeting and participated in the Young Women's program, and told us afterwards that she wanted to keep coming.  I feel like this girl is giving me whiplash, because she´s always breaking my expectations.

Primary Program

Church this week was great, because it was the Primary program week, which meant that the sacrament meeting was hilarious and consisted of the following:

The three year old (Jxxo Pxxxo) that repeatedly made a break for the microphone to scream into it.

Complaints of, "Stop pushing me!"

One of the kids, in response to the teacher whispering what he needed to say in his ear, stopped in the middle of his speech to say, "LET ME TALK!"

The same 10+ primary songs that have been in the primary program for years and do not change according to the theme of the year.

Kids so short that it wasn't actually possible to see them over the pulpit.

So basically, the whole sacrament meeting was adorable and super funny.  It was endearing to see that the primary program is going to be the same stuff, even if it´s in a different language.

Kind of Frustrating

Sometimes the things people do in response to finding out I´m a missionary can be really discouraging.  One woman, the second I said the word 'missionary' literally moved to stand protectively in front of her child, as I made a contact with her in the street.  One family was sitting outside their house, and when we approached and said good afternoon, looked at us with mild annoyance and disgust and just looked in the other direction until we left.  One day it was pouring rain, and we hadn't brought anything to keep us dry.  We were knocking doors, and a woman appeared in the doorway.  I politely said good afternoon and asked for her name, to which she snappishly asked why I needed to know.  A little taken back, I told her I simply wanted to ´greet the 'Senhora'.  She told me I didn't need her name to do so.  I tried not to react to her rudeness and gave the speech:

"We´re representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and we´re here because we have a special message about Jesus Christ that we´d like to share with you."

*Flatly* "I´m Catholic".

"So, you don´t have interest to hear a message about the Lord?"

*Sneering* "I'm a practicing Catholic".

I just stood there in the rain as she shut the door and just felt a surge of indignation.  The mission is not easy, especially because you know that all you are trying to do is share something you love.  It´s sad enough when people say no.  It´s even worse when they´re rude about it.  But, there are also the people who are kind.  They let us in when it´s raining, or give us chá when it´s cold, because even if they don´t want to change their religion they think that the work we do is beautiful and want to help us.  I´m really grateful for those people, because they make all the hard stuff okay.

So, in all, this week was challenging, but we´re teaching a lot, and I really like the people we are visiting with.  The ward is great, and our leaders are helping us a lot.  I hope you all have a great week.