26 March 2012

Hey there!

So it's a little weird this year. It's supposed to be raining a lot, but it's been really dry...Last year it rained for about half of March and now it's only rained twice this month. Yesterday was the second time and I burned my neck (I forgot sunscreen for the back of my head) while shivering because the rain hitting me was cold...PERNAMBUCAN WEATHER IS WEIRD!!!! Anyway things are going well here. For the first time in my mission, we just have couples and families as investigators (so good), but none of them are married (so bad); and they are all at home the same time of day (so good), but they live far apart from one another (so bad). Anyway we're trying to help them all to get ready for marriage and baptism. Other than that things a pretty slow here. We walk a lot (I got more tan) and do a lot of contacts because we don't have a lot of investigators, but things are good.

Yesterday we went to visit a member who is coming back to church and he lives in his aunt's house. We were talking with him (he's amazing because he actually studies the scriptures) and he was talking about what had happened in the last ten-ish years since he fell away from God, and his aunt kept looking at us weird, like we were dirtying her couch. Then she turned on the TV really loud, right next to us and left the room. When her nephew asked us to turn it off, she came back in and complained that she was watching the soccer game, he explained that the soccer game had ended 15 minutes ago, but she insisted on turning it on again. The Elder's Quorum President who was visiting with us said that he had done a service project in a Catholic church and that is was nice to see interfaith tolerance (which is rarer in Brazil than in the States). She heard the word "Catholic" and blew up. When she calmed down enough, I told her what Robério had said and she turned red. I said that we never speak badly about any church; we simply teach what we believe and invite people to pray to God to find out. Unfortunately she decided to not listen to what I was saying.

Anyway she calmed down and left eventually. Every day I hear opinions and ideas that I don't agree with, but that doesn't shake my testimony. People need to learn to be independent from one another and rely solely on God (at least in spiritual matters). It's the only way to have peace in this life.

I love you all,

Elder Page