Bom Dia my marvelous family! We had a normal week here in Cuiabá.
My area is super good but its different than I thought it would be before I
arrived. I thought it would be all skyscrapers and stuff, but luckily its not
like that. We work in an area that's about 45 or 50 minutes from the cuiabá
center. SO really, my area is alot like my other areas before. Its not a super
poor area but there's not really any nice houses or buildings. The church house
here is by far the nicest building for miles. But I like it like that, its alot
easier working in a humble area, because it means that it has humble people. The
people here have a different vibe about them compared to Sorriso. Here there are
alot more of the typical Brazilian looking people. With darkish skin. Sorriso
has alot of white people from the south and are a closed, cold people, but not so
much here. It's alot easier making contacts and talking to people here. It is
hard though too, cause its a pretty small area and almost everyone knows the
missionaries. There are people that are like yeah, I have already had the
missionaries here like 5 times but you can come in if you want. That kinda
stinks sometimes. But it's alright. There are always just random people that are
like hey Elders what's up! and we talk to them and they have received alot of
visits from the missionaries already but don't want to change churches. There's
alot of that but the attitude of the people here is completely different.
Sometimes, I think I´ve died and gone to heaven haha. But it's good here. We had
been working alot with a young women this week and named Mayara. We met her
during the week last week because she is the friend of a member, we invited her
to church and she went and so right after church we taught her the restoration.
It was a powerful lesson and we had two members with us during the lesson. I
thought she was going to pass out at the end of the lesson, because she couldn't
breathe cause she was feeling the spirit so strongly. It was a neat experience.
She accepted to be baptized without hesitation, but after, she had some questions,
because she was already baptized in a church that her parents go to. She said
that her mom told her that it's a sin to be baptized more than once, we explained
about authority and showed her and example in the Bible when there were people
who were baptized again, she also said that she didn't know how her parents
would react with her desire to join another church. She said both her parents
are very active in their church and that her mom is even an evangelizer, which
means she does missionary work too and walks in the streets and makes visits and
stuff. We said that we would talk to her parents during the week and explain
everything. So during the week we tried to do that, we went there several times
but mayaras parents weren't home or were busy and couldn't talk. We finally were
able to talk to her mom for like 2 mins, but she just said to come back later
when she wasn't busy. So we came back later but she had already left. Mayara
said she talked to her parents, but they didn't agree with her being baptized
again and told her that she is denying Christ of she were to get baptized again.
We still explained that we want to talk directly with her parents to explain
things. Finally on Friday we went and her dad was there, but he didn't want to
talk, so we just talked with Mayara for a little while and finally her dad poked
his head out the door and then went back into his house, then he came aback out
again a little later and actually talked too. But the first thing he said was our
daughter wont be joining your church because she already has her own church and
she wont be changing. He said that she hasn't said anything about joining another
church. We explained that's why we were there to talk to her parents and explain
things. He didn't know what to say after that, I just told him that we will
come back to talk to him another day. He just tried making excuses saying that
he is never home and stuff like that. He was kinda rude and it didn't sit to well
with me, but the Spirit told me to keep my mouth shut, so I didn't say anything
to provoke him. We will wait for another day when we can actually sit down and
talk, and if they still are hard headed, we will just bear testimony and let the
Spirit burn him. I feel bad cause Mayara really wants to get baptized, but she's
only 15 and so she has to have permission from the parents. Whatever though, it
will work out as the Lords wants it to work out. So on Wednesday, we had district
meeting and also President Reber came and interviewed all of us. It was good, he
just said to keep praying for the visas because there are over 1,000 Americans
waiting for visas to go to Brazil. He said that I will probably be training as
soon as the visas arrive so he said be ready. So we ate more bbq this week and
we had another service project in the house of a member, we picked a bunch of
weeds and cleaned up his yard. Then he made us bbq again, it was really good,
but my necked burned alot we had a good time though. Tomorrow I am going to go
on splits with our district leader Elder Cardon, he's from La Paz, Bolivia. He
works in another area, but he will come here and Elder Almeida will go to his
area and work with his companion, which is Elder Linton who is from my group. SO
it should be a good day tomorrow, I think we will end up doing alot of contacts
and looking for new investigators, our teaching pool is a little small right
now so we need to fill it with some fishes. I don't know if we have any plans for
p-day today, I know that we will get fed lunch today and that there will be
family home evening as well at the house of a member. I enjoyed all the letters
and the pictures, looks like Jordan should have had a good time at the dance.
Yesterday church was stake conference and so there was several wards there. I
think the stake president said there was about 500 people that came. It was good
and I got to see all the missionaries from our zone. Right now I am in the same
zone as Elder Linton, Spencer, and sister Clark who are from my group and sister
Clark is from my district at the mtc, the other 2 we just arrived the same day
to the mtc and were from a different district but we are still good friends.
Sounds like you guys had a warm week back at home. We had a warm week too, it
was about 90 degrees the entire week, it was supposed to rain this week, but we
didn't really get anything, except for last week it rained like crazy for about
an hour! the main avenue turned into a river literally, I was expecting to see
a bum rowing down the road on a wood door or something. Time is passing really
quick, I'm getting closer and closer to hitting a year. Strange to think about
that. Well, I'm gonna try to load some more pictures for you guys before we go, but i think that's about it for this week. I think mom will have to do alot of spell checking. There isn't spell checking on this computer cause its programmed for Portuguese and so it just says that all of my words are incorrectly spelled. plus there's a problem with the a button and so it keeps pressing "a" without me wanting to. So I hope everyone has a good week this week and that you all stay safe and happy. I love you guys all so much and thanks for everything from you guys! Com amor
-Elder Kennington
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