So much has happened over the past week since we talked on Christmas. After lunch, we visited with each other, ate watermelon, then went to go pass dinner in the house of another member. Dinner ended up getting cancelled so we passed the night of Christmas at home eating pizza. Then Thursday, the 27th, we had interviews with President for Zone Conference. Long story short, emergency transfer for me to Gravatai to switch with an American with 3 weeks on the mission who is having health problems with the sun and could only work an hour a day (and with a Brazilian companion who wants to work hard but can´t as much as he´d like and doesn´t fully understand). Thursday night we had an FHE with Pedro and the Cunha family where Elder Banda made tacos. Then we went home and I packed up.
We woke up the next morning, went to Zone Conference, ate lunch, then went to Porto Alegre to switch companionships, then to Gravatai with Elder Souza from Sao
Paulo Capital. We arrived in time for me to only unpack my backs and hit the super
market really quick. We live with 2 other companionships, Elder Pereira
(Brazilian) and Elder Glasgow (the one American in my group who went to the
Provo MTC, from Arkansas), Elder Burobano (from Ecuador, and our DL) and Elder
Owens (in his 2nd transfer, from Arizona), which is a bit wild. The same night
that I arrived, December 28, was the birthday of Elder Owens, so we made a cake
and had terere, and was able to bond with everyone my first night here.
On Saturday we visited a lot of people, or rather tried to, but
everyone travels to the beach because it is so hot here and only ended up
entering into the homes of recent converts. There we taught a super spiritual
lesson to someone nonactive with a RC. Now Elder Souza tells everyone I´m
fluent and a spiritual powerhouse. He is funny, a bit wild, but likes to work
hard. We ended up eating lunch in the house of Bishop Andre Saturday
and Sunday because of so many people travelling. A t the end of Saturday, I
shared apparently a rather powerful message using the first verse of the BoM
about how we learn about the kindness of God during our many afflictions. I
learned that their story is similar to the story of Lehi, that two years back,
they were doing great in a strong ward, strongest in the stake, and stake
president comes up and says the Lord needs you to move to Parque Dos Anjos (our
area) and only that. They do so and about a month or two later he was called as
Bishop.
Anyways, Sunday, we had church at 8:30, but sacrament meeting is
the last hour. Bishop during lunch the day before told me not to worry about a
talk this week, but that next week I´d be giving one. Fine by me. Mid way
through second hour, with about half an hour left until sacrament meeting,
secretary comes in and says we need you to give a 10 minute talk today, thanks.
People said it was good, but I´m not so sure. A recently returned missionary,
Vagner gave a great talk, and in part of it he talked about how when we don´t
use the Lord´s name to talk about his church, we are taking his name in vain.
Bishop also gave a great talk on forgiveness and not judging.
P-Day was on the 31st and we had a P-Day with the
whole zone of Gravatai, a churrasco for Novo Ano. Then we get back and we go to
Bishop´s for dinner and a meeting on missionary work which was great, took a
picture with his family that I´ll send later. Then as we´re leaving and Bishop
is giving us a ride home, the other elders call us and invite us to come over
to their bishop´s house for a churrasco and stuff so Bishop Andre takes us over
there. We eat more, use basically sparklers, and then go home. We´re joking
around, using the elevator and only the 3 Americans are inside, I feel an urge
to hit to close door button and Elder Owen laughs and says ‘Only Americans’ and
as the door is closing by itself, Souza sticks his leg through and it opens
back up and all six of us get inside, hit the button, starts to go and breaks
and begins to move down in chunks. People freaked out, hit buttons, elevator
stopped, we said a prayer, tried to call emergency number but it didn´t go
through but somehow managed to call their bishop for him to call the people and
somehow we use a Book of Mormon and brute strength to open the elevator door,
but we were in between floors and somehow Elder Pereira knew how to open the
doors on the floors from the inside so we managed to get out and we took happy
celebration pictures. We called President and told him because we weren´t sure
if we broke the elevator door and if it would cause problems and he laughed and
said if it caused problems with stuff, he´d call us.
New Year´s Day was an impossible day of work, same with the 31st,
everything closed and no one answers because everyone is either on the beach or
with a bunch of family, but today we finally were able to go to a LAN House and
send email and after this we can finally get to work, working hard. It will be
a bit difficult because we are essentially starting from scratch, but we´re
gonna get things done.
Fireworks are always crazy here. Between that and the fact the
fan in our room is broken made it near impossible to sleep the first night of
the New Year. It feels like it has been forever since Skype.
Love y’all,
Elder Mangum
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