It was a good week. Church
was good. Roseli and her family didn´t make it, still working with them, but
Elder Favoretti said missionaries have been working for a very long time to
reactivate them and he´s fairly certain we´ll be able to do it. Sergio is doing
great, perfect elect. Every time we visit him he says something like ‘I´m on
the path of God, everything is perfect’. He was confirmed yesterday.
We had 4 investigators at church yesterday: Danielle (who I
don´t remember if I´ve explained or not, but her "husband" is a
member nonactive who is married to another woman who left him for a woman and
the divorce is finally underway. She comes to church almost every week.), and
then a family: Keila (12), Ednai (9), and the mom Cinthia. The dad and older
son are out of town right now, I think he´s the equivalent of a trucker. Their
life has been super hard, I´ve almost cried a couple times during lessons, but
it has been great getting to know them. For instance, Keila has this disease
that is essentially reverse anemia, too much iron forms in the blood and so she
sometimes has super painful attacks and has to go to the hospital in Porto
Alegre for I think transfusions. Medical/science terms are somewhat easy to
understand because they´re the same with different pronunciations, I
think. They also had a son die at 3 years old many years ago from this
same disease. However, the Plan of Salvation finally satisfied/filled Cinthia.
She said she´s had dozens of Pastors teach them and preach about her son but
none filled her or left her with a desire to go to church until us. We taught
them once with the dad but the rest has been without. Keila and Ednai are
set to be baptized after church on Sunday, but the parents, like just about
everyone, are not married and need to be married before they can be baptized.
We´re teaching a couple different couples that need to be married as well.
Things are good with Elder Favoretti, he is slowly easing more
responsibility on to me, like now I start off our first lesson with people with
the questions on finding out their needs and what not which is a bit hard at
times, but like the small silences as I think and form questions and whatnot
aren´t anywhere near as bad or awkward as I thought it would be. I think my
communication skills are coming, slowly. My understanding is coming a lot
faster than speaking. While I can´t understand a lot of words, in context I
generally can understand the phrase, although there are also a good deal of
times where I´ve thought I´ve understand on context clues and answered a
question that wasn´t asked, so yeah.
This week I´ve had a good amount of churrasco, barbeque. It is
so so good. Reminds me of the times in Will´s backyard, only they cook things
differently, on like those smore sticks, can´t remember what they´re called in
English, and pretty slowly. We eat a lot of meat here which is great cause I
love it. I also had tererê this week which is like chimarrão/mate, only cold
and with juice. It was with lemonade/lemon juice and tasted exactly like frozen
lemonade and those drinks, it was so so good, especially since spring has
started and things are definitely starting to heat up.
This upcoming week I´ve got a training in Porto Alegre on Wednesday
and on Saturday a member of the General Primary Presidency is speaking in Porto
Alegre and we get to go.
Always good to hear how everyone is doing. Insane to think I´m
starting my sixth week here in the field. Also, already developed an insane
amount of gratitude for a loving family and parents. Elder Favoretti was raised
by his grandparents and has had a lot of crazy experiences. He is amazing
though, 21, has a fiancee in Minas, been a member for 3 years, super funny and
has great stories.
Have a great week!
Love y'all!
Elder Trevor Mangum
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