Oh minha família amada. How I love you all so much. I really do miss you
all alot. No missionary exists that doesn't miss his family and home at times. I
had a dream Friday night that everyone in the family and also alot of friends
came here to Sorriso to visit me. It was an interesting dream seeing and talking
to everyone. It seemed like it lasted for a while as well. But eventually I woke
up and realized that it will still be a while before I get to see and hug my
family again. That made me kinda sad. But its in those times when I have to get
down on my knees and thank Father in Heaven for my wonderful family and friends.
It´s hard when we look at how long it will be before I am home, but then I look
at the other side and see that it's even sadder that I only have a year and a
few months left on the mission. I have more than 9 months on the mission now but
I feel like I haven't done very much to help The Master. We work so much but
harldy any of our investigators go to church. Sorriso is supposedly the second
hardest area in the mission. I am almost embarrassed to bring investigators to
church because there is hardly anyone at church. And we have a few overbearing
members that jump all over our investigators the minute they walk in the door.
On Sunday we had 30 people to church. I remember walking into sacrament meeting
and thinking "This is the Church of Jesus Christ. Why are there so few people in
the Lords true church?" I got a little discouraged with these thoughts and then
remembered that these are just things that come from Satan. I remembered that
scripture that talks about straight is the way and narrow is the gate that leads
to eternal life. And few there be that find it. Or something like that I don't
remember exactly. But I'm glad for the time that the Lord is giving me here in
Sorriso so that when I am transferred I will be able to appreciate the trials and
difficulties that I had here. We are pretty blessed to have such a strong ward
back at home. That's something that I took for granted. But so this week was
pretty good I guess. Last p-day after sending emails we left to cuiabá at about
2 pm. I got to sit by Elder Molina the whole way to Cuiabá. He is from Chile and
is super awesome. 2 of my favorite missionaries are Chileans. Elder Molina and
Elder Paredes that I was with in Cáceres. We all chatted during the 8 hour ride
to Cuiabá. Sorriso and Lucas and Sinop all went on the same bus so there was 10
of us on the bus together. It was a good time. We stayed in the houses of the
Secratartes in Cuiabá. They live really close to the mission office. The Sisters
had all the luck though and got to stay with President and Sister Reber at their
house. So we stayed with the secretaries who are really cool guys. The next day
we had the conference. We learned alot about obedience and the importance of
working with the members. We also learned why we have one of the hardest
missions in Brazil. So our mission is huge and contains millions of people. But
our mission has only about 3,000 active members in it. This is the second lowest
number in the missions of Brazil. That's tough I think Roosevelt itself has that
many members alone. Our mission is the second hottest mission in Brazil, so its
hard physically, but also our mission has very very few members to give
references and help give support, so its also one of the hardest work wise. Its
so much easier working with members and working from references that they give.
But Unfortunately we have a tough mission with that, especially here in
Sorriso. But that's why President wants us to strengthen the members. Our mission
is baptizing alot less than it has in the last few years. But we are seeing real
growth. The baptisms that we are having are staying firm in the church. We
receive a graph that shows the number of people at church each Sunday in the
entire mission. And almost every ward and branch has a higher frequency than the
year before. I think there was only Sorriso and one other branch that hasn't
grown. President Reber is helping the mission see real growth, and not just a
bunch of baptisms but nobody staying active in the church. Our church in our
mission is strengthening. Slowly, but its growing. I got to see two people that
I knew from the mtc. I got to see Sister Clark who was from my district at the
mtc and Elder Linton who wasn't from my district but arrived the same day at the
mtc and also he served in New York as well with me. It was great seeing them and
talking to them I will send a picture that we took together. Everyone in our
zone left that day except for me and Elder Geisler and Elder Molina and his
companion Elder Mayolo from Washington because there was a training for all the
district leaders and also for their Companions and well. So me and Elder Mayolo
had a training with a few other Elders. The assistants gave the training to us
which was really cool. I learned alot. This training was on Wednesday and the
conference was on Tuesday so we got to stay for two nights. Also we ate at
McDonald's on Tuesday. Which was good but super expensive. I miss those days of a
mcdouble for a dollar instead of like 10 bucks haha. I got to talk alot with the
Elders in the office and the assistants. Oh and also I played the piano at the
conference. Called to serve which went good. So on Wednesday we left at 4:30 to
go back to Sorriso, This time my seat was next to Elder Mayolo who is from
Washington. He has 6 months on the mission right now. He arrrived 2 transfers
after me in Brazil. He served a transfer in Montana. He is super cool and I want
to be companions with him one day. This time on the way back to Sorriso we were
all alot more tired and we slept most of the way there. We arrived in Sorriso at
about midnight and we got a taxi and went back home. Thursday we taught that guy
Giomarley that went to church on Sunday. We waster another 2 hours at his house
cause he just wanted to talk and talk and talk. But this time we were able to
give the restoration lesson to him. He enjoyed the lesson but was like oh I don't
think I need church, I feel that I can be spiritual in my own house. We
explained the blessings of church and we must go. But we were ready to drop
him as an investigator. So we tried visiting a few people after this we visited
a family that me and Elder Cordeiro had visited alot before. Their mom was in
the hospital with some problems with her heart I think. We left a message with
them and talked with them for a bit. So the day after we tried a new
neighborhood and knocked some doors and taught a few lessons. We taught the
entire first lesson to a lady standing at her gate cause she didn't want to let
us in her yard but she wanted to hear our message, then we found a really cool
humble guy named José. I saw his house and knew that we needed to make a contact
there. So we made a contact and he invited us in even before we had really
introduced ourselves. He was curious with what we do and had alot of questions. We
talked a bit and then started the first lesson, but then this guys friend showed
up, I don't remember his name cause it was something really weird. These guys
were both active in the assembly of God. But one was more humble and open than
the other. We started over again on the lesson and gave it to both of them. It
was a good lesson and I know they both felt the Spirit. We asked them how they
felt during the lesson. And José started talking but his friend cut him off and
started talking saying how its good that we are out spreading the word of God
and he said that he believed our experiences that we shared about how we gained
our testimonies but he pretty much told us with directly saying so that he didn't
believe that Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus Christ. And then he told us that we
should only teach about Jesus Christ and not about other things. So he pretty
much told us that we shouldn't talk about Prophets and about the first vision and
Apostles and the Authority of God that we had, to them. The Lord was testing
me again that day. Because the ignorant comments of this guy grinded my gears
pretty good. I looked him in the eyes and told him in the most direct way that I
could that this is the Church of Jesus Christ and not of man. I bore my
testimony and said some other things that weren't my own words, but the words of
the Spirit. After that he shut up pretty quick. They wanted to show us some
videos of what its like in their church. It was of just some pasture guys
yelling and screaming halleluhah and a load of balogna. I just watched with
mouth open cause I was so surprised by how this pasture acted and the things he
said. I couldn't believe that someone would teach about Jesus in such a rough
tone of voice and yelling and stuff like that. We had a prayer and the video was
still playing so I asked if they would pause it and the pasture guy in the video
was screaming at the top of his lungs. I almost asked them if they thought the
Savior taught in the same way as that guy in the video. But I kept my mouth
closed. We had a prayer and left. We plan on coming back but to teach José who
was alot more humble and open, I think he will like the Book of Mormon alot.
Saturday we had several appointments fall through but we had a few less active
lessons and lessons with investigators. We had dinner at a members home that
night because they were celebrating the birthday of one of their daughters. We
ate steak sandwiches with homemade mayonnaise which was pretty good. Sunday, There
was only 30 people at church none of our investigators showed up to church as
well as the other missionaries didn't have anyone. We had lunch and then we went
with our mission leader in the branch to teach some lessons with him. We taught
some interesting people with him, that he knew. We will go back and teach more
this week. That night we got a call that one of the women in our ward had passed
away suddenly. Mother of the family that we had visited during the week. She was
doing better but then had suddenly worsened and had passed away yesterday
evening. Her name was Sister Eunice she had helped me and Elder Cordeiro a
bunch, she came with us to several lessons and was our member present, show was
a wonderful lady that was a convert of about 5 or 6 years. She had been sealed
to her husband and everything and was active in the church. But the Lord needed
her back I guess. She will be a powerful missionary in the Spirit World. I
called Elder Cordeiro and talked to him and told him the bad news because he was
close to this Irmã as well. He was saddened. He is doing good I talked to
President Reber about him and he said that Elder Cordeiro is doing better. He
hasn't had a surgery yet but he is having less and less pain. It was good talking
to him last night. So that's about it for this week the funeral of that irmã will
be today already. A weird thing about Brazil is when someone dies they have the
funeral the next day. I'm not sure if it will work for us to go or not. Oh, also I
haven't provided very much about Elder Geisler my companion. He is from Dixon
California. His name is Nathan and is 21 years old. He hit his one year mark on
Wednesday so Friday he burned a shirt and Elder Lima burned pants because he had
already hit a year and a half and still hadn't burned pants and also I burned a
tie finally even though it was more than 3 months late. I burned a really ugly
tie that I found in Cáceres. we videotaped it and it was pretty funny. Elder
Geisler is legit. I am going to help him with language study, because he speaks
with alot of accent and everyone thinks that I have more time in the country
than him. But I am going to help him with the language. This transfer is going
by super quick and is already halfway over. I really am ready to be transferred
from Sorriso, but most likely I will stay until December just because I want to
leave. We will see what happens. This is the Lords work and I will do what he
wants. So yeah this email has taken me a long time to write. But it was cool
reading about your week this week and sounded fun. But I love you all so much
and I know that every difficulty I experience and every time we face rejection,
I know that my family is being blessed. May the Good Lord bless you all. Thanks
so much for all the prayers and support. I am always talking with Kaiden and
Jetson and Robby. They are doing well. Amo vocês muito! Have a great week this
week!
-Elder Kennington
No comments:
Post a Comment