Monday, May 20, 2013

Week Sevety Five - Broken Glasses and Sickness...

Tom has less than 200 days left in his mission!  I am so excited for us, but feel bad that he is probably not wishing it to pass as quickly as we are.  He was sick this past week for only the second time that I remember him writing about.  That's pretty good, considering he is in a foreign country and so far from home. 

Hi Mom, Dad, Em, and.... wait.... David´s not there anymore! Gah!
      
         Nossa! Sounds like the week was just rough for everyone. My week was okay... more or less. My glasses broke. I guess it´s time to use my other ones. Nossa, my glasses were dirty. It´s a wonder I don´t get sick very often.... or no wonder, using glasses like those. That being said, I got sick this week... don´t know why. From Thursday to Friday I woke up several times during the night (and I never wake up during the night) feeling a little strange. Pretty much any little sound woke me up, when I usually just sleep like a log. But 6:30 arrived, didn´t feel well and immediately went to the bathroom, where I ended up throwing up. I went to sleep again because I wasn´t feeling good still and a few hours later, after taking a shower and getting ready I did it again. So I stayed home half of the day, not feeling well, and we left at about 5 to go work a little bit. That interrupted pretty much everything and we weren´t able to do much. But I felt much better the next day and didn´t have any more problems. But the rest of the week was uneventful. My companion and I ran a lot to try to reach 20 lessons taught to investigators in the week and we searched for a lot of new investigators but few people were able to go to church this week. But the family that went last week, went again yesterday and we´ll have a family home evening tonight with them at a members place... it should be good and hopefully they´ll make the decision to marry and get baptized soon. Marriage with Brazilians is difficult. Very few people are married here but everyone lives together. They´ve all got children, we tell them they are breaking a commandment of God, and that they need to marry, they´ve all been together for years now, but they´re all afraid of signing a paper that says they´re legally married. "Right now isn´t the right moment," they say.... it´s quite annoying...but we´ll see.
         We found a girl who was taught a few years ago by sisters. We were talking to her sister, who also was taught, trying to remind her of the word of wisdom, and her sister came out of nowhere and helped her sister remember. We asked her who she was, if she remembered the missionaries that taught her and her visits in the church, and if she still has the desire to be baptized (she was going to be baptized before but something went wrong in the baptismal interview) and she said yes, she still wants to be baptized, so we´re going to work with her this week, she just has a small problem with alcoholic drinks..... But yeah... that was my week more or less.... hrmmm, not much happened....
        But I´m glad to hear your week went well, even though it may have been a little hard. David´s mission will bring muitas felicidades to everyone. And just know that it´s the fastest 2 years of everyone´s life. Carrying on!
Q&A
When did you get made the district leader?  I don't remember you telling us about that before. Sorry, I guess I forgot to tell you. I am 3 weeks into my second transfer ( of six weeks) as district leader... so... in March. It was kind of annoying. I was in Belém at that time and 2 district leaders of the zone had ended their missions and went home, the other was moved up to zone leader. 2 new district leaders had arrived the day I went to Belém and the last one, I guess Pres. Scisci was up in the air trying to choose, because I didn´t learn that I was district leader until about a week after being in Belém... so it was kind of weird...
What do you have to do as a district leader?  Are you enjoying it? As a district leader, I give... they´re called treinamentos in Portuguese but, to call it "training" in English is a little weird, but yeah it´s training, that I give every Tuesday to 2 other missionary duplas, one is the sisters that share the Santarem area with me and my companion, Sister Viera dos Santos and Sister de Lima, and the other is a companionship that lives with the zone leaders in an area called Pérola (Pearl), Elder Teles and Elder L. Oliveira (I´m the only American in my district),  so I usually stay up until midnight on Mondays thinking of things to say to my district. I also interview the elders and sisters of my district and I call them every night to see how they are doing if they are having problems and if they will have a baptism at the end of the week. Oh, I also interview the baptismal candidates, which can be a little annoying because sometimes I have to interview kids that don´t remember much about what they were taught.
 What is Santerem like?  Is it a big city, mostly residential, both?  Do you like it better than being in Belem? It´s not a BIG city, but it´s a good size. It´s mostly residential. There are some cruise ships that pass by sometimes, so there´s a bit of tourism here. Of the entire zone, I think my area is the only one in which most of the streets are pavement-ed. All the others just have dirt roads, pretty much. It´s a lot calmer than Belém, not everyone sits in front of giant speakers with the music blasting while at the same time, somehow having a conversation, while drinking beer, just a few people do that here, and yes I do like it more than Belém.
Do you still live with another set of missionaries or did you end up moving? Yes, we still live with other missionaries. We live with Elder Paiva (still) and Elder Neres (still), but with my new companion Elder Mendes.
What is your favorite thing to eat in Brazil? Nossa! that´s difficult. Everyday I eat rice, beans, and some sort of meat... I think I just like meat in general now.... Bisteca (don´t know the name in English) maybe is my favorite....

But I think that´s all for this week. I love you all, stay safe and be happy because we´re serving missions but I`m coming home in 6 months woooohoooo! Don´t cry too much mom!

Love Elder R. Williams

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