Ho Ho Holy 15 Weeks — Called to Serve in Cuiaba

Greetings. This week it rained a ton and it made for a slippery week

in a good way

Wednesday was a rough day. It was some straight up nonsense. Throughout my study that morning I read a good amount of stuff about opening our hearts to the will of the Lord, and by doing so our paths will be guided and we will feel full with a sense of purpose, we will be filled with happiness and absolutely overflowing with love. The promises of comfort we have through just choosing to follow Heavenly Father are so rad. Later that morning I felt like I needed a blessing from Kevin but I already got one on Tuesday and I almost didn’t ask him because I was being a moron. In that moment realized I just studied for 3 hours about opening myself to the will of the Lord and I got absolutely white knuckle serpent punched by everything I was just studying hahah. Like really? Why was I thinking of closing myself off to the blessings the Lord has for me. It was so innocently done and I didnt even realize I was doing it. Satan is a sneaky ape. Literally the first line in Kevin’s blessing he gave me was this... "the Lord does not want you to suffer in the mission.” That kind of caught me off gaurd, but the more I thought about it the more it made sense. I’m out here getting absolutely pulverized at times, but then Kevin is telling me in this blessing the Lord doesn’t want me to suffer: Makes sense... but actually makes sense haha. In our lives when the dificult times are thrashing us, we tend to close ourselves off to the blessings of the Lord without even realizing it. If we aren’t consciously trying to stay on our trails the Lord is carving out for us, we tend to start walking our own path and eventually we walk off like a cliff or something, or walk into a boulder or trip over a stick and it always ends up terrible. I really realized that it’s not natural for human beings to be choosing the right. Tell me I’m wrong please, but I’m pretty sure it would be a lot easier to be at home right now taking boxing lessons or something rad like, but I know I need to be doing this mission thing. It’s so easy and so natural to just walk our own path and that’s why we need to be actively receptive to what the Lord has for us. Wake up and consciously follow the path that God is tossing down for ya.

On Thursday we were conversing with the good old Branco and Vania and we had their neighbor join us for the lesson. We got Branco and Vania to bear their testimonies and it was awesome. I was so stoked to hear them bearing thier newborn feelings about this gospel. It was so rewarding. While they were talkin to their neighbor Kevin tossed me the baptismal handsignal, like he wanted me to lob a baptismal invitation to the guy or something and I gave him the look like “wut” and then he made the hand signal one more time and I flashed back to President Antonio’s house 6 weeks ago when I denied Kevin’s invitation to give the message and I got kidney punched by those same memories hahaha, so in an effort so avoid another church talk I invited this dude to be baptized. His name is Homualdo and he has this level 12 cute kid that is the most shy little bean on the earth and every time I see this little kid I sneak up behind him and tap on his shoulder and he always turns around smiling until the second he realizes it’s me and then he almost jumps out of his skin every time haha its my favorite thing. Scaring timid little kids haha. But really the invitation with Homualdo went so stellar. We’re gonna keep working with the man and keep trying our best to invite the Spirit into his life to do the real teaching. Yew.

Alright dudes, were gonna get a tiny bit sensitive again. On Friday when I woke up I felt sadder than an 16th century poet. After studies, Kevin and I left to go change a life. We were like 15 minutes from the house and Kevin goes "dude I forgot something we have to go back to the house” hahah so I was like alright whatever little boy we can do that. We got to the house and I knelt down next to my bed and started literally praying with every last crumb I had in me. I literally said "Listen man, I am getting railed out here, please take my sadness, surround me with angels, just give me anything” and then I finished my prayer. Right after the prayer I chilled on the knees for a moment and got some really cool thoughts. One of them went like this... "listen Porter, I, your Heavenly Father hate seeing you so engulfed in sadness. It pains me so greatly. All of the angels you’ve always had surrounding you, they’re crying with you. We are here mourning with you, don’t you ever forget it.” And that just made sense to me. Without the oppositions in our lives we’d be freaking nothing. We need the opposition. But we also need to remember Heavenly Father isn’t happy to see us getting absolutely broken down to the core. He is crying with us, He is sending our loved ones who are on the other side to lay and mourn with us. They are always with us, but he can’t take our trials until they’re finished because that’s not His plan. I guess what I am trying to say is that if you are feeling completely deserted, like everyone has left you and you’re entirely alone, remember the angels that all of us have are crying with us, that Heavenly Father is pained so greatly by your sadness, but we must go on and continue. Don’t ever decide to give up.

Quick update on a couple of the dudes we’ve been teaching. We tried to visit William and Lazaro this week but they were always gone when we showed up. We show up to church on Sunday and William is just sitting there alone hahahhaha I kid you not this fool got on his motorcycle and rode it to church in the rain with a hole in his chest still oozing who the freak knows what. It was fast and testimony meeting and Branco and Vania got up and bore their testimonies in front of the whole group of 40 people that were there haha and laid a nice testimony down. When they got up to bear their testimonies I literally, like actually literally almost shouted FREAK YES hahahah. William stayed all three hours of church and ended up loving the whole thing. We had a class about families and good old William has 7 kids with 7 different women haha so when the dude giving the lesson says “our children are blessings” William goes "well if my whole life goes to ish at least I’ll always know I have 7 blessings hahah.” Also, Branco got the Aaronic priesthood, and when he got ordained I let out a quick “yeh” in the middle of Sacrament meeting and he was stoked on it hahhaah. He started to laugh while he was standing. We also found Lazaro drinking at the bar on Sunday after church so I took advatage of the moment and started to mess with him a little bit haha. All were gonna say is he said some interesting things (; We have some super rad upcoming people that God is helping us prep. Should be a super good last 2 weeks of the transfer.

Last thing. The super cool thing about this week was that it was an absolute bore, but I learned so much. I think my love for these people grew more than the Grinch’s heart. The opposition that each one of will have isn’t punishment. Don’t treat it like it is. Go hug your family members and give someone a little extra love this week.

Also, go rail someone in the face with a snowball for me this week hahaha

Over and out

Elder Porter <3

Email: proskelley@myldsmail.net

photos:

1. Kevin and I drilled two holes in our cinderblock wall so we could put the basketball hoop in a more accessible play spot.

2. Eating some creamed ice

3. Brancster and Vandangle spiritually smiling (again)