Dreams

Hey Mom,

Here is the rundown of my week:

We met a woman named Circa and taught her the first lesson, and she was really interested and readily accepted baptism. It was cool because after teaching her Elder Kozlowski pointed out how it was similar to when Jesus taught Mary, because Circa sat on the floor and didn’t want a chair, and even though her kids were running around crazy and we had interrupted her washing the laundry and she had work later that night, she was very attentive and focused on our message. 

I had my first run in with a real ´´loco´´ here haha. I don’t remember his name, but he was a street contact. He made sure to make his beliefs clear to us... That we as missionaries have 46 chromosomes and aren’t human, and also that the US has technology called ´´spin´´ that enables us to travel back in time, which we did in the 80´s with two astronauts who went back to the time of Christ. He has 9 HUGE books reciting the ´´experiences´´ of these astronauts and these are his bible. The same day when trying to contact an ex- pesquisador, we also had panties thrown at us from the window... the message was pretty clear so we said ´´tchau´´ and left. That day was pretty interesting!

HEY MOM I HAD MY FIRST DREAM IN PORTUGUESE!! Now before you get excited let me explain, because this is kind of a joke. Yes, I had a dream in Portuguese... but not like what you think. It was really a nightmare, and in it everyone was speaking Portuguese and I couldn’t understand any of it! So at least my brain has made the connection that I’m clueless all the time. And now it happens in my sleep, too. Woohoo! Hopefully someday I can have the REAL dream experiences to tell you.

Speaking of dreams, here in Brazil they have these pastries called sonhos (´´dreams´´) for one real, equivalent of about 30 cents, they are like donuts filled with chocolate or cream or fruit, and they are very, very good. They also have pineapple here for the same price, one pineapple for 30 cents, (one real) so I´ve been buying fresh pineapple to eat! It is SO GOOD. While I’m talking about food, last night Elder Kozlowski of Idaho, the potato expert, made some homemade sweet potato fries with the batata doce they have here in Brazil.  I have pictures of that. Also we had lunch with a member yesterday and we had PARMESAN CHICKEN! Yours is WAY better but it was very similar to how you make it, it was a little taste of home!

A little more about our baptism, Enrique, last week - I baptized him.  We baptized him the same day we found him.  We couldn’t get the font filled fast enough so I did the baptism on my knees... not sure if that’s allowed or not but it happened, our Zone Leader was there and was okay with it so oh well! Enrique is a great kid.  He turns 12 soon, still hasn’t been to church because his dad is basically the devil and conveniently has Enrique doing things on Sundays, but he comes to lessons with us, and we found out yesterday night that he’s even been visiting some of our investigators and telling them to pray about our message and stuff like that. He’s gonna be a great missionary someday if he stays firm in the church! 

We had another baptism this week, Mateus, he’s a good kid but the family situation is really tough(his sister was the one that threw the panties, his uncle hates us, parents are dead) so I hope everything works out but I don’t know what’s gonna happen with him.

We also found a man named Paulo who was baptized 2 years ago but stopped going to church, and reactivated him, he’s going to church again and preparing to get the priesthood.

I play the piano in sacrament meeting but it’s a disaster every hymn. They are used to just singing acapella and some of their rhythms are incorrect, also some hymns are different then in English so I mess up, and they do NOT follow a beat and always sing super slow and it’s so hard to line up, so I kind of hate that but oh well. Language is a constant struggle, trying to stay positive is as well, but I’m trying!

My scripture to share this week is Jacob 6:12.   In Portuguese is ´´Oh! Sede Sabios! Que mais poderei dizer?´´ I don’t know the exact translation but basically its “Oh be wise, what more can I say?” This is a reminder to me and hopefully to everyone that we are here with knowledge, if we are older than 8 years old we have the knowledge to be able to choose between the good and the bad in the world. And we KNOW the good and the bad. So just be smart, don’t be stupid, it’s like Jacob said - be wise.  Use the knowledge you have to choose the good.  There’s not much else to it, it’s very simple:  make good choices and be blessed. I just liked how simple this scripture was. Hope everything’s going okay back home, enjoy your thanksgiving; I love you all and miss you all!  Elder Sork