A Day of My Life:
Every morning I wake up at
6:30 am to the sound of the roosters crowing as the sun slowly rises over the
luscious green mountains and brilliant red rooftops that decorate the skyline
of the city of Sousa, Brazil, where I have been called to serve for the time
being as a representative of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by
a prophet of God. Although I am tired, I
roll out of bed onto my knees and pray.
I thank my Father in Heaven for the marvelous opportunity He has blessed
me with to serve for 18 months of my life as a full time emissary for Him to
share the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, which I know to be true. I ask Him to bless me with charity, patience,
diligence, and strength as I prepare to go out another day to declare His word
to the amazing children of God here who I love unconditionally. I ask Him to bless me with the Gift of Tongues
that I might be able to communicate with the people here in the Portuguese
language, which I studied for six weeks at the Missionary Training Center in
Provo, UT.
When I am done, I rise to my
feet and walk over to the window. I
look out and see a horse and oxen grazing randomly on the side of the
street. The dogs are already up
searching the streets for breakfast and, if I'm lucky, I may see a couple
seguis monkeys playfully racing along the telephone wires.
I exercise for 30 minutes
while listening to BYU Vocal Point and other approved music and then shower,
eat, and prepare for the day (there's only one knob in the shower, because
there's only one temperature - cold). By
8 am, I am on my knees asking my Father in Heaven to guide me as I personally
study the word of God (The Holy Bible - Biblia Sagrada and The Book of Mormon),
“Preach My Gospel”, and other materials for one hour. There are times when I will study solely for
myself and there are times when I will study for the people I will teach as I
pray and ponder the things they need to hear that day. More often than not, I find that when I study
for others, my own testimony of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ grows even
stronger than it does when I study for myself.
At 9 am, my companion and I
are on our knees together as we pray for inspiration and guidance for the
people we teach and visit with in our area.
We share the things we have studied for the last hour and discuss the
needs of the people we will visit that day.
The hour passes quickly and when we are done we pray again, thanking our
loving Father in Heaven for His inspiration
and asking Him to bless us and the people we will meet with.
We meet up with the Elders at
noon and head over to a members' house for lunch. Most of the members here are pretty poor and
hardly have enough to feed themselves, but they are also so kind. There is hardly ever a day when lunch is not
provided to us by these loving people.
To eat, we have rice, beans, noodles, cous cous, and a little bit of
meat. To drink we have juice (guava,
passionfruit, mango, etc.) or guarana soda.
Since I've gotten here, I've
learned that you can never eat a meal without a knife. Rather than using knives solely to cut food,
the people here use their knives to neatly scrape their food onto their forks. I am still mastering the art of timing my
eating. I have learned the hard way that
you cannot be the first missionary with an empty plate because the loving
people here will always insist you get more food (even if you are already
stuffed. there are many times when we
missionaries have to pray that we will be able to eat all the food on our
plates), so I have been trying to eat slowly and consistently check where my
fellow missionaries are in terms of their meals (note: the Elders always get
seconds, and sometimes they'll get thirds).
My companion and I walk the
streets of Sousa each day finding people to teach about the Restored Gospel of
Jesus Christ. We teach people about the
restoration of the church Christ organized when He was here on the earth; we
teach people about the Plan of Salvation that bring us so much happiness; we
teach people about the principles of faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the
gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end; and we teach people about the
laws ad commandments our Father in Heaven has given us to protect us and keep
us safe from the things of the world. We
invite them to read The Book of Mormon and ponder its message; we invite them
to come to church with us on Sunday; we
invite them to pray to know if The Book of Mormon is true and if Joseph Smith
was a true prophet; and we invite them to follow the example of Christ by being
baptized by someone who holds the proper priesthood authority.
The field is so white here in
this foreign land of Brazil. Every week,
the eight missionaries in our district fill up the baptismal font once, if not
two or three times, to watch wonderful children of God enter the waters of
baptism and make covenants with the Lord.
It is amazing to see the way the Gospel changes lives and the happiness
it brings to individuals and especially to families.
In the month of March, Sister
Acosta and I were able to see R., S., and E. make these promises, and we are
now doing our best to help them endure to the end. The individuals, Sister Acosta and I taught
who made the decision to be baptized this month are all so different. One, an 11 year-old girl trying to figure out
who she is as she lives with her grandmother instead of her parents [who have some challenges]; another, a 29 year-old man who came from a family addicted to drugs
and had to overcome this large stone in his path to keep the commandments of
the Lord; and finally, a timid,
middle-aged man preparing for marriage, who has been attending church for five
years but has never, until now, felt prepared to be baptized (his fiancée and
he are looking forward to the day they can be sealed together for time and all
eternity in the temple in a year’s time).
While here on my mission I
have seen so many different people enter the waters of baptism and my testimony
that we are all children of a loving Heavenly Father has grown so much
stronger. Our Father in Heaven loves us
so much that he restored the same Gospel that Christ taught upon the earth
through a living prophet (Joseph Smith). This Gospel is the Gospel taught by The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and this Gospel is not for just a
collection of chosen people. It is for
everyone. God would not create different
churches and religions for different people.
This is the work of man.
I respect each and every
church and religion and the things they teach, for they all contain truth, but
I can testify that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only
church that contains all of the truths and the fullness of the Gospel f Jesus
Christ. How grateful I am to have the
opportunity to dedicate 18 months of my life to sharing these truths full- with
my fellow brothers and sisters and watching these children of God change and
find joy they have never felt before.
The work here is not
easy. Each day, I begin sweating even
before I step outside; my legs ache as we walk all day every day; I feel
inadequate as I attempt to communicate a special message with others in a
language I still have not mastered; and each day my companion and I fall into
bed exhausted after praying to our Father in Heaven and thanking Him for the
strength He blessed us with that day and praying for the people we are
teaching. Tears have been shed (I've
probably cried at least five different times since I've gotten here), but they
have all done me good, refined me, and made me stronger. I wouldn't trade my mission for the world,
because I know that I am in the midst of the Lord's vineyard and am sharing the
pure fruit of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ with those I promised to
share it with before I came to the earth, and I also know that my mission today
is preparing me for greater things to come tomorrow. I am an LDS
missionary. I am Mormon. I KNOW it.
I LIVE it. I LOVE it!!!!!
BATIZADORES
[Our mission] had 208
baptisms this month!
Woooohooooo!!!!! Sister Acosta
and I helped three of these happen!
Q&A:
Q: What is that bandage on
your forearm [in your photo]? Were you injured?!
A: I burned my arm while
ironing a skirt the other day, but it's fine now. I only have a small scar. Tudo bem.
Q: Does it rain much there?
A: Sister Acosta told me that
it never rained before I got here, but it has been raining a bunch. The other day we had water up to our ankles
when we were walking home. Our roof is
getting worse as it leaks into our room and the floor gets wet. We have buckets though.
Q: Do any of the missionaries
have bicycles? Nope. If not, why not?
A: They would definitely get
stolen.
Q: Is there sufficient public
transportation?
A: some cars/taxis, a lot of
buses and motorcycles/mototaxis, horse/donkey carts
Q: Do you ride horse / donkey
carts ever? How about mototaxis? Do you ever hitch hike on donkey carts?
A: No to all of those
Q: Do you feel safe?
A: Of course I feel safe. I'm in the Lord's hands.
Q: Does anything dangerous
ever happen?
A: I'll save those stories for
when I return home.
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