Bom Dia Família Amada, espero que vocês estejam gostando do frio aí
em casa, porque aqui está quente pra burro!!! (Good morning beloved family, I
hope you are all liking the cold there at home because here it is hot to
donkey.) I don´t know it doesn´t makes sense in English but it's something that
the people in this region of Brazil that I think is funny. So yeah, sounds like
it was really cold back at home. I think I still prefer the heat, I´ve never
liked the cold very much, but then again the heat here is a joke sometimes, it
gets so bad. Some days I want to wear one of those desert turban things to
protect my face and neck and brain cause its so hot walking around in the sun.
Its good for Elder Payne though I guess, he's getting broken in pretty good I
guess haha. He likes it though. So this week went by pretty quick for me. Did
some cool stuff this week. I think I only worked for 2 or 3 days this week with
my companion cause we had to do several divisions, and so I ended up being with
Elder Groff for most of this week and Elder Payne stayed with Elder Moraes. Last
p-day we didn't really do much we played some soccer and that was about it. We had
a family home evening that night, that was good. I think it was Tuesday we had a
normal days work with Elder Payne we visited Dalila who is a 16 year old young
woman that we are preparing for baptism this Saturday. I know that she had a
fool boyfriend that's 23 years old that she was all sad about because she couldn't
get a hold of him and its been a while since she had seen him. We know that
he only has one thing on his mind with a young women like her. She also likes
coffee a lot. Yesterday after church she was all distressed because in young women
they said that we don't drink coffee in our church, she was genuinely upset about
that, so we explained it a little bit of why we don't drink coffee and some other
things as well. She was a little immature about it though so I hope we can get
all her problems resolved this week, we are also preparing her friend Brenda to
be baptized this Saturday as well. I just hope everything works out, I know its
not right but I get really ticked off when I think about how many investigators
and baptisms Satan has ruined. Sometimes I almost go crazy thinking about all
the obstacles and trash that he throws in front of us and our investigators.
Sometimes I think that Satan focuses all his power on just me and my companion
and our investigators. I know that isn't true. But something that the Holy Spirit
has been telling me alot lately is that you are the senior companion now and
that I have alot more responsibility now and that the rest of my mission is in
my hands now. I wont be the one that makes most of the choices and I wont be
following what my companions do, but now its me. Its my choice, I have one year
left now. I want it to be one of the greatest years of my life. The Spirit has
be telling me that. I can make it one of the most memorable greatest and
happiest years of my life, or it could be just another year of my life. Thursday
I will hit one year. It seems like yesterday that mom and dad dropped me off at
the mtc in Provo. It seems like yesterday that I arrived in New York, and it
seems like yesterday that I arrived in Brazil. Everything just goes by so fast.
This time next year I will probably be on a plane back home. That's a sad thought
for me. I don't want to leave Brazil or the mission. I'm glad that I still have
another year to be here and give it my all. We have a hard mission and sometimes
its hard to give all we have. Its super hot, the church isn't super strong here,
and its hard to baptize alot of times in this mission. But I will give all that
I have to my Heavenly Father cause this is his mission and his work and I am
only one of his servants in the vineyard. I don't want to get home and have any
regrets. It was cool going on splits this week we had to get to several other
areas to do baptismal interviews and we also went to tijucal an area that has
Elder Spencer and a missionary that he is training, Elder Jackson. Elder Groff
needed to help Elder Spencer with a few things there and so I went on splits
with Elder Jackson we walked a ton and several of their appointments fell
through, but we got to a house with a woman yelling, they had an appointment
there, but the investigator was gone and the other lady that was there came out
in tears saying that she was sorry cause her 7 year old daughter was being very
disrespectful to her. I asked if we could do something to help her, the question
caught her off guard but she said that we could talk to her daughter if we
wanted. So we sat down with her daughter for 10 or 15 minutes and talked I asked
her why she wasn't treating her mom very good, and told her that Heavenly father
was sad that she wasn't showing respect to her mom, we talked some more and she
promised to try harder, Elder Jackson just bore his testimony and he gave her a
picture that he had of Jesus with the children, I'm glad that he had it. We gave
it to her and then we taught her how to pray, and she said a good prayer. Her
mom was really happy and thanked us and said that she needs to start going to
church again, so we set up another appointment for the missionaries to go back.
They said that before she had never talked to the missionaries, but now I think
she will let the missionaries teach her. Its a good feeling when we know we are
helping families. We had mission tour this week. Elder Gavarrete came to the
mission and spoke, I thought it was cool. Everyone was scared that he was going
to burn everybody though, we learned about how we need to work on retention and
we need to baptize people that will stay active cause there is a huge number of
less actives in our mission. Sunday the zone leaders baptized a family that was
really cool, it made me really happy to see an entire family going down into the
waters of baptism together. It gave me the renewed desire to always search for
families who are ready to receive the Gospel. Well we are going to the center
today and so I have been really short on time so its kind of a fast random
email. I got to go now. I'm excited to hit a year this week. Elder Payne
is doing great, he is learning the language well even though he doesn't notice it.
Well, please pray for us and our investigators Dalila and Brenda so that we can
baptize them this week, I feel like Satan is going to do everything, to not let
these baptisms happen. But whatever the Lords will is, is what is right. So yeah
we are going to get burned in the sun this week but the Lord never said it would
be easy. Love ya, I will try and send pics if there is time. Love ya all
Sister Missionaries & Elder Saxton, His MTC Companion
-Elder Kennington
Elder Cordeiro and Elder Kennington
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