How do you feel? And for posterity’s sake, please be honest.
Hello, Hello, Hello.... one more week has flown by, and I am sure all of you are completely stressed with school, work... etc... all the workings of normal life. I am feeling a lot better, and back to the normal stress of the mission... which is awesome! We are working hard, and this week we booked it all over our area- which is huge! We have to take the onibus a lot because it’s so huge... once again I have another little city in our area, which is fun.
I finally talked my companion into singing with me on the onibus, and now she loves it. It’s a little scary the first time, and the second time... but after a few days your legs start shaking. haha! We always sing the same hymn- "minha alma hoje tem a luz" My soul today has light? What hymn is this in English? Terrible, terrible. But it’s really fun, it’s a super upbeat hymn.
We live next to a peanut factory that makes pacoca and a bunch of peanut candy (just not peanut butter -sad) and so everyday there is a smell of toasted peanuts... yum. Why is it that I always live next to the smell of food? In Iraja we lived above a paderia... bread store I think? And there was always a smell of bread... yum. But this peanut smell is way better, and it’s even better because pacoca is waaay cheap. Which is good because about a year ago I developed a viçio de pacoca. I am addicted to this pacoca stuff. It’s the best ever- (family its that peanut butter fudge thingy I sent home)
We also live next to a biiiig catholic church. Funny because in Iraja it was the same... only that here this church is humongous. A lot of nights we can here the mass and stuff. Interesting. This city has a ton of churches, I think I am going to start taking pictures of how many different churches there are here- you wouldn’t believe it. And everyone with a name more absurd- The Church of Jesus Christ of the seventh day, the baptism church, God is love, Universal, the Assembly, There are tons of Jehovah Witnesses, espiritisma, The College of Christ, The Spinal Cord of Christ (no, I am not joking) Alan Kardec, The tabernacle of Faith, the Christ Congregation, ....and it just keeps going and going.
Its no wonder that there are so many confused people here.
We are teaching some great people- This week was a little frustrating. The past two weeks we have been helping an old woman stop smoking so she could be baptized- Francisca. She wanted soooo badly to be baptized and stop smoking, and she stopped smoking completely this past week. And she was super excited to be baptized, and completely firme until a few hours before the baptism Sunday afternoon. And some relative that she hadn’t seen in over 6 months showed up out of the blue telling lies about the church... lies so ridiculous that its hard to think that people believe it. (That after she baptized she would have to travel to another country and walk a lot, that the church was only about sacrifice, that we didn’t believe in God or the Holy Ghost... only Christ)
So it was really sad to see on Sunday afternoon how the lies of Satan sometimes are so crazy, but people believe them. Needless to say she did not want to be baptized, or even go to church. So we will see if we can do some damage control this week... who knows.
So that was a bid frustrating, but the good news is that my companion is awesome, and we shrugged it off and kept on working. We have some great other pesquisadors that we will focus on (all of them chose not to come to church on Sunday... ugh) But I am positive that there are lots and lots of people waiting for us.
We had a funny moment this past week, we contacted some reference and this lady had 2 pit bulls- huge, huge pit bulls. We asked if we could come in, and she said, "Well if you are willing to risk it, but I don’t know what these pit bulls will do. They don’t know you." I looked at my companion and said, "vamos!" (Let’s go) Only that she has a great fear of dogs ( I don’t blame her, these dogs were ugly) And I entered in the gate. Only that I didn’t see that the crazy lady shut the gate behind me, and my companion who wasn’t so close to me, was shut out. (The gates here are huge and opaque) For about 2 minutes I couldn’t see my companion. I had 2 huge pit bulls around me, and this crazy lady trying to calm them, and me trying to explain to the lady to open the gate so my companion could come in, and trying to shout to my companion to stay close to come in. It was a big mess. And finally she opened up the gate, and sister Santo walked in... crazy. We taught the lady, and as we were leaving, the pit bulls started to playfully bite the lady... crazy, crazy. We were so glad to leave, Sister Santo was shaking, but we could only laugh and laugh because it was another crazy missionary moment.
Anyways- it’s about time to get going, I have to go get another x ay to make sure everything’s all right. I am loving it here in SJRP- its kind of a mix between Iraja and Porto Ferreira.... way interesting. I love being on the mission- already in 2 weeks here I feel like there is soo much to do! Vamos la!!
Love you all!!
Sister Melanie Monroe
PS- Thanks grandma for all the letters. Mike was right on when he said you are our most faithful letter writer. You rock! Thanks!!
I finally talked my companion into singing with me on the onibus, and now she loves it. It’s a little scary the first time, and the second time... but after a few days your legs start shaking. haha! We always sing the same hymn- "minha alma hoje tem a luz" My soul today has light? What hymn is this in English? Terrible, terrible. But it’s really fun, it’s a super upbeat hymn.
We live next to a peanut factory that makes pacoca and a bunch of peanut candy (just not peanut butter -sad) and so everyday there is a smell of toasted peanuts... yum. Why is it that I always live next to the smell of food? In Iraja we lived above a paderia... bread store I think? And there was always a smell of bread... yum. But this peanut smell is way better, and it’s even better because pacoca is waaay cheap. Which is good because about a year ago I developed a viçio de pacoca. I am addicted to this pacoca stuff. It’s the best ever- (family its that peanut butter fudge thingy I sent home)
We also live next to a biiiig catholic church. Funny because in Iraja it was the same... only that here this church is humongous. A lot of nights we can here the mass and stuff. Interesting. This city has a ton of churches, I think I am going to start taking pictures of how many different churches there are here- you wouldn’t believe it. And everyone with a name more absurd- The Church of Jesus Christ of the seventh day, the baptism church, God is love, Universal, the Assembly, There are tons of Jehovah Witnesses, espiritisma, The College of Christ, The Spinal Cord of Christ (no, I am not joking) Alan Kardec, The tabernacle of Faith, the Christ Congregation, ....and it just keeps going and going.
Its no wonder that there are so many confused people here.
We are teaching some great people- This week was a little frustrating. The past two weeks we have been helping an old woman stop smoking so she could be baptized- Francisca. She wanted soooo badly to be baptized and stop smoking, and she stopped smoking completely this past week. And she was super excited to be baptized, and completely firme until a few hours before the baptism Sunday afternoon. And some relative that she hadn’t seen in over 6 months showed up out of the blue telling lies about the church... lies so ridiculous that its hard to think that people believe it. (That after she baptized she would have to travel to another country and walk a lot, that the church was only about sacrifice, that we didn’t believe in God or the Holy Ghost... only Christ)
So it was really sad to see on Sunday afternoon how the lies of Satan sometimes are so crazy, but people believe them. Needless to say she did not want to be baptized, or even go to church. So we will see if we can do some damage control this week... who knows.
So that was a bid frustrating, but the good news is that my companion is awesome, and we shrugged it off and kept on working. We have some great other pesquisadors that we will focus on (all of them chose not to come to church on Sunday... ugh) But I am positive that there are lots and lots of people waiting for us.
We had a funny moment this past week, we contacted some reference and this lady had 2 pit bulls- huge, huge pit bulls. We asked if we could come in, and she said, "Well if you are willing to risk it, but I don’t know what these pit bulls will do. They don’t know you." I looked at my companion and said, "vamos!" (Let’s go) Only that she has a great fear of dogs ( I don’t blame her, these dogs were ugly) And I entered in the gate. Only that I didn’t see that the crazy lady shut the gate behind me, and my companion who wasn’t so close to me, was shut out. (The gates here are huge and opaque) For about 2 minutes I couldn’t see my companion. I had 2 huge pit bulls around me, and this crazy lady trying to calm them, and me trying to explain to the lady to open the gate so my companion could come in, and trying to shout to my companion to stay close to come in. It was a big mess. And finally she opened up the gate, and sister Santo walked in... crazy. We taught the lady, and as we were leaving, the pit bulls started to playfully bite the lady... crazy, crazy. We were so glad to leave, Sister Santo was shaking, but we could only laugh and laugh because it was another crazy missionary moment.
Anyways- it’s about time to get going, I have to go get another x ay to make sure everything’s all right. I am loving it here in SJRP- its kind of a mix between Iraja and Porto Ferreira.... way interesting. I love being on the mission- already in 2 weeks here I feel like there is soo much to do! Vamos la!!
Love you all!!
Sister Melanie Monroe
PS- Thanks grandma for all the letters. Mike was right on when he said you are our most faithful letter writer. You rock! Thanks!!
posted by Bev at 3:23 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home