Week 24 - 6 MONTHS and Transfers! — Called to Serve in Cuiaba

** From Mama Lynda. . . It’s soo hard to believe Porter has been gone 6 MONTHS! After serving for 3 transfers (4.5 months) in his very first area, Porter is finally being transferred. He’s going to everyone’s favorite area to serve in. . . waaay down South in Campo Grande! (it’s cooler, and less humid). Porter is super excited!

Hello, I found out I'm getting transferred to Campo Grande which will be a 16 hour bus ride. The hardest part about packing my bags and all that stuff was probably taking apart all my Legos hahah my fingers are so hurty.

So the week was a rad one. Not gonna lie Castro and I have been a little down in the dumps lately. We have been having a hard time finding people to teach and every FREAKIN time we find a family who's all amped on Jesus like we are, they're never married and its like a FRICKIN 3 month process to get married here it's such a sham. So we have been praying for like the last 4 weeks to find some people right, and last week we get a call from these sister missionaries in Salt Lake City and they were like "yo this dude named Edson found the Church through the website and we've been teaching him and now he's interested in the Book of Mormon so yea were gonna give you his address” so that was super cool. We end up finding the address on our PAPER map we have hanging on the CEMENT wall and ends up he lives way on the other side of the land in the 3. We called him and were like what's up man and he was like what's up dudes and then we were like we wanna visit you and so he was like cool. Tuesday, last week rolled around and we tried set up an appointment with him to go to his house at like 7 with a nice couple in our branch but his phone didn't work so we just decided to go peanuts to the wall and drive out there and we show up at his house and he was home yeeeeeee. We literally had the most beautiful lesson with them. Turns out they're MARRIED, they both have some insanely crazy desires to find God and a church that actually teaches super bad a stuff, and they have a vespa so they can drive to church. I literally have never been so amped to find a family not kidding. When he told us he's married I did a freaking gnarly air fist bump when I thought he wasn't looking, but he saw the whole thing and just looked at me half stoked and half confused hahaha but what I'm trying to get at with all this is this... for 4 weeks Elder Castro and I were praying our tiny hearts out begging God to give us some dudes who were ready for the message. What we didn't know was that on the other side of the planet in Utah, God was prepping this rad couple while we thought He was just kindof putting us on the side. That 4 weeks of faith exersizing struggle and little success teaching new people made that tiny moment with our new homie Edson so much more special. I know God is listening to your prayers, as well as mine, and that if we could only see all the things that are being prepped, maybe even on the other side of the globular, we would be absolutely boggled in the brain. Don't lose faith, your prayers of struggle are being heard <3

We went to the supermarket to buy salt for one of the sisters that was making us lunch and I asked the worker dude where the salt was, and he just looked at me and yelled “salt” so loud in a high pitch voice so I yelled it back at him hahaha and then he showed me where the salt was and when I grabbed a bag of salt I yelled “salt” and then he yelled salt again and then I just left and we didn't say another word ahha. Every time we'd pass that supermarket I'd just toss a quick little scream in the store and I'd always hear in the back of the store a little high pitch “salt” hhahahh has me dying!

When we got the phone call about transfers we were in Balbino's house, and after we got off the phone and all that jazz I shared one last lesson with them. I shared D&C 122:7 that talks about our struggles, and how every freaking crappy time in our life will end up being for our good. I bore my testimony about how I truly know that times in our lives get super difficult. I started to just break down and cry and I began to tell a story about some of my own personal difficulties. I bore my testimony for them that in those times of sadness and darkness, when I truly felt like there wasn't hope, when almost every single thing I loved and knew just wasn't workin out for me, the only thing that kept me goin through those hard times was the love Jesus has for me. We all started leakin tears, and I told him that the reason I am a representative of this church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not because my parents go to this church, or that its cool we get free pieces of bread every week on Sunday, or that I think Mormon girls are cute, but I told him that I am a missionary for this church because in no other place on this whole entire planet earth do I feel that perfect love like I do in this church. I am not out here trying to tell people that our church is better than theirs. I am not out here trying to tell people that the church they go to is wrong... that would be the lamest ish ever. I am just trying to help people be happy, and the only place where I draw true happiness is from the Church of Jesus Christ. I pray that if you are struggling you remember that I am always here to talk, but more importantly you can always draw true and lasting happiness through prayer to our Heavenly Father. I promise you guys that you will feel of the love that the Savior has for you. I promise that with every fiber in my being. I know that your difficulties will be made up to benefit your lives in ways that you can never imagine, but you don't have to do it alone. Let the Savior take your load.

This week I was eating some freaking tough as leather meat after I ended a Fast and I was trying to chew this frickin stick of plastic and I bit my lip so hard and bit a hole through my lip, but only on the inside so now i have this little tunnel on my bottom lip. It hurt like a son of a.

I wanna close with my testimony super quick... about love. Really you've all heard it before, but I'm never gonna stop saying it. Love is what really changes people. I have the strongest testimony about how when people feel that you truly love and care about them, that opens them up and through that love they will change faster than anything else. I have a testimony that when we are loving, we receive more love and then we're happier and then we wanna love more and it's just the raddest thing ever. It would be so nice to be sleeping in til 10, eating my moms food, playin some nice gamecube, but something that is way cooler than gamecube is love. If you want to feel loved, go love someone. If you feel like no one cares about you, go care about someone else. Through love, and just being your sincere self, miracles happen. God doesn't expect you to be perfect, and if anyone tells you that, they are so incredibly wrong. All he wants is for you to try. Try to love someone. Try making your siblings bed, or try buying a homeless dude food, or try shoveling someones driveway or like give your mom a hug or something. I know this sacrifice out here is worth it. I love you guys, and I hope you know that this love that I am feeling through trying to love others is changing my life.

I'm gonna start putting a joke at the end of every weeks email. Here it goes... what is the difference between an old man and a tire... when a tire gets bald you can't comb it over AHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

Hope your week goes lovely this week. Heard it was a little chilly last week. Would be good to wear a jacket when you leave the house.

Love, Elder Porter