Second week in Feitoria flew by so quickly. Bruna and her family are doing great, we visited them last
Monday and taught the Restoration again. The parents had read and discussed the
first 5 chapters in the Book of Mormon that day, taking an hour. It was fun
talking with them and their kids. I actually got to be a part of it. We even talked
about Marvel which is somewhat difficult with the different names, but they
also knew the names in English so it was fine. It's really fun to talk with people about their interests.
We visit Roberto, the guy who was confirmed with them, generally every
day. He used to be this hard drinker who kept trying to quit who met the
missionaries, I think got a blessing, and hasn´t drunk since. Apparently, he´s
also a lot mellower now than he was which is crazy to think about because he
seems pretty much like a crazy old man to me. I´ve met some interesting
characters who come by and visit him, some of his bad influence friends, but Elder Favoretti said I haven´t seen anything yet. One of them was shaking from the
drugs they were on which freaked me out a lot. But I talked with Elder Favoretti
right after and he brought it up with like everyone we had lunch with the rest
of the week, and apparently I have got to get used to that because it´s normal in
Brasil. Also another crazy experience that happened this week: two police on
motos flew by us with sirens then a little bit later an ambulance. We keep
walking and we walk up to a crime scene where a guy was shot in the head a
couple times. Apparently had a problem with drugs.
We teach a lot of different
people. Gabriel is probably going to get baptized this Saturday after
conference. He is 19 and we met him while knocking doors my first day. He came
to church last week but not yesterday because he just started a job where he
works every morning, but luckily General conference counts as a sacrament
meeting and he can get baptized after that. We also met someone who we thought
was elect, Sandoval, this 72 year old man, because our first lesson, the
Restoration, was great, he brought up some points of error in the Catholic
church which he had grown up in too. Then we get to the second lesson where we
start off by teaching the BoM and he goes "Wait, y’all are those Mormons?
I won´t go to that Mormon Church" He also has horrible memory, like he
brings up faults in the Catholic church and then two minutes later ask a
question where the answer is the fault that he brought up earlier. We´re still
teaching him, he is somewhat mellowing, I don´t know to be honest. He didn´t
come to church, his response was probably not. We are also teaching Daniela and
her family (sister and nieces) and she wants to be baptized but her
"husband" (father of her child who is like 4 and who lives with her)
is married to another woman so he has to divorce this other person and then
marry her before she can get baptized. Also, the rest of the family doesn´t
want to come to church anymore because apparently a member of the bishopric
asked for money from them at the cultural potluck whatever thing last week
because they weren´t members and didn´t bring any food. Come on dude. We´ve
taught a couple of other good families, but only the first lesson, so we´ll see
how things go with them this week.
The church did have
power this week, although there isn´t AC, only fans, so we have all the windows
open and since it´s day time, the lights being on doesn´t really change that
much. Our congregation had about 60 people this week, so to me it feels tiny.
It was not Fast Sunday, apparently they still do fast Sunday during general conference. Not sure how that works- if it´s just fasting, I assume. Singing in
Portuguese is fun, I´m used to it by now cause the CTM with choir practice and
district favorites there. We sing a lot of hymns I´m familiar with. Also, no
one plays the piano during sacrament, the chorister (switches between YW) sings
the prelude/first line alone and then we sing starting from the very beginning.
Also during 5th Sunday here it is a bit different- sacrament all the members of
the bishopric spoke. Second hour gospel principles which Elder Favoretti taught
for some reason which it happened to be the week of the Restoration so no
problem. Last week the Bishop´s wife taught but she wasn´t here this week. Then
3rd hour was all combined like normal, and it was all about fellowshipping and
being welcoming and about this youth event coming up for 16-25, Meet Up, on
October 12th, all of Brasil meets up in various cities and has like this one
day EFY type big event. I wonder why we don´t have this in the US. Apparently,
this is the second year doing it.
We
get fed lunch every day except for P-Day apparently, and that´s the biggest
meal of the day here, so I´m surviving. The people here look out for the
missionaries too. We stopped by on Saturday night, the church, because it was
Moças Standard´s/Values night. Moças is YW. We wanted to see if Daniela´s nieces
(Camila and another girl) came because we invited them, but nope. However,
they gave us the rest of the cake and make us some like hotdog sandwiches or
something. I only ate the cake, not that hungry. The YW leader is funny, I
think you´d like her. She reminds me of Sister Hunter.
We´ve got a washing machine attached to our apartment that we
can use throughout the week, but only one so we´ve got to use it throughout the
week. It´s just for us two though so that´s good. We just hang stuff up to dry
on something by our room, you can see it in the pictures.
Playing in the rain is a lot of fun. It isn´t flooding or anything. The blisters are
healing, no longer a constant low pain while walking, only the pain in my legs
now. The days where it rains is the best because clouds and the days
are cooler. I can definitely tell that spring is starting, it is starting to
warm up.
This past week flew by. I´m sure I´ll be skyping y’all in no
time. Have a fun week, love y’all!
Lots of love,
Elder Trevor Mangum
Apartment Pictures
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| The Neighborhood View from our Balcony |
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| Drying Clothes Rack |
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