Week something of awesomeness (#27)

This week I realized something super duper important that I had been praying for, for a very long time. On Wednesday we had divisions with the Zone Leaders and I went and worked in a different area with Elder Cambé. After we left the house and went to work we just started talking to everyone the Spirit directed us to. We were walking down the street as we passed this one little alley way and saw a chick who looked to be 25-30ish just sitting there. We walked up to the gate at the front of this little alley and called her attention and she came and let us in and we walked back through this little area and it opened up to a tiny humble house and there were like 4 kids just chillin back there. Two of them were her kids and two of them are kids she takes care of. We started talking to her and she opened up to us super quick and was telling us she feels pretty sad and overwhelmed by life and then Elder Cambé asked her "when was the last time you prayed"and she kind of just looked at us and was like it's been a really long time. We gave her a simple little lesson on prayer and then gave her a Book of Mormon and it was such a calm tender setting and the Spirit was testifying of everything we were saying. She continued to open up to us more and tell us more about how she wants to get a better relationship with God and as the Spirit increased so did the understanding and hope in this chick. At the end of the lesson we invited her to pray and it took some convincing haha, like 5 minutes, but she finally offered a little prayer and it was incredibly spiritual to hear her offer her first prayer in years. I felt that our Savior was at our side and already started to lift this extremely overwhelmed mom because of a 15 second prayer. I know that everyone always tells you like in Primary or whatever that you have to say your prayers and that kind of stuff, but in this little moment I gained the strongest testimony of sincere prayer. I found that through the shortest, but ever so needy prayer of this lady, the Spirit rushed in and filled her heart with relief and happiness and we felt it too. It's so incredibly simple dudes. We have the opportunity to talk to the Creator of all things, literally our Heavenly Father, and sometimes we pop a quick prayer off at the end of the day like "yo wuddup Pops I'm good thanks for that cute blonde chick that said hi to me today, Amen” and like I'm guilty of it too. I know, and confirm with all my heart that our Heavenly Father is waiting for you to tell Him your struggles, tell Him about that kid who said something mean about the color of your socks, or that other kid who said he thinks your backpack is ugly. He is here to listen to whatever it is that you are struggling with whether it's with an addiction to drugs or the desire to hurt yourself or wanting to be someone completely different than you are, or something as simple as not liking the color your room is painted haha who knows. But one thing that I do know is that it doesn't matter how stupid it sounds to the human ear, nothing you are struggling with is stupid to Heavenly Father. Talk to Him and give Him your struggles through prayer and He will lift you.

I met this one dude this week named Filipe and I told him I'm 18 and I'm American and I like to eat popsicles ahahah. Then I was asking him where he's from and if he has kids or a wife and he was like oh dude I was born here in Campo Grande and I've never moved out of the city and I have 73 years and all this jazz and I was like that's rad and then we got talking about prayer and he told me he didn't know how to pray so I was trying to teach him but he literally cut me off like every 15 seconds to talk about his freaking pastor so I finally was just like dude alright we have to go but it was a pleasure to meet you God bless you and your pet dog and then we left the house and when I was like 12 meters from the house he yelled at me and was like "wait are you a Russian too” and I was just like heck yea dude how did you know, and he was like "no way dude I'm Russian too, I could tell by your accent” ahahahh so I just started dying laughing hahah and then I was just like "that's cool man see you later” and then when we were walking away I was thinking and like firstly, I told him I was American like 3 times and secondly he told me he had never lived outside of Campo Grande and thirdly I really hope I don't sound like a Russian hahah. Like is Russia sending spies to Brasil for some reason: you meet some wack people in the mission hahah.

This week I was all amped up on spirit juice and so we were walking in the street on Friday night and we had already knocked doors for like 3 hours and only one dude let us in and it was that Russian dude so I was just bound and determined to find someone haha so were walking on the street right and I see this old dude on the other side of the street so I just yelled "whats up young man” and ran across the street because I saw he was laughing haha and I almost got hit by a car hahah so he just started laughing harder. I started talking to this dude and he let us in and he lives in a wood house and it smelled like Cam Clarke's cabin and it made me so freaking trunky hahaha. But we get talking to this old sap and he gets talking and he gets super sad and started to tell us about his son who passed away 3 years ago who was his best friend and the only person on the earth that he truly felt cared about him and I literally started to cry at the pain this dude was having. As I told him a little bit about the Spirit world and that his kid is still living and hangin out with other angel bros I realized something insane. For three years this dude suffered and cried and struggled and hurt over the death of his son because he thought he was completely dead. There are so so many people in this world who have so many struggles and are so pained every day by a mountain of struggles that can be so easily cured through the knowledge that we have because of the Church of Jesus Christ. That gives me all the motivation in the world to find those sad people and slap a smile on their faces. As he found out that he will see his son again I saw a different light enter him. We invited him to come to church and he denied and denied and denied and so finally I was just like bro, I will show up at your house at 8:30am on Sunday whether you wanna go to church with me or not and I will ring your doorbell until you wake up and you're going to go to church with me and sit next to me and sing with me and feel the Spirit with me hahah and then he just looked at me and was just like "alright young man I'll go to church” hahah. I sat with him the whole time during both hours and he loved it and I freaking love José. He's already being so changed by the love that is being felt from Jesus.

Whenever I cross the crosswalks I always hop on the white lines and it's so funny because everyone who is waiting for the light to change always laughs at me until I look at them and then they try to stop hahahah its so funny!

Last thing. This week I really learned about the importance of hard work. When I was working even when people were telling me they couldn't understand my Portuguese or that they don't like Americans or that they just didn't want to hear anything I had to say I wasn't sad at all because it either made me laugh or proud to be an American or something like that. Hard work is the key to everything and if you are feeling like an absolute brick, find something to do and work hard at it. Whether it's going to the gym or coloring coloring pages or making paper airplanes, just do it with passion and you will find so much happiness.
Love you guys.

Elder Porter

We burned some stuff for my 6 month date in the mission, but it was super lame so we ended up just playing around with bug spray

Tried to get a pic with Pres and Sis Granja

These animals called Capivaras that live in the park in the front of our house