Opa gente,
Basically, the subject is false, but true. They didn´t have to walk in the hills of Tanguá or Pilarzinho. My legs have been greatly strengthened, and Elder Marx probably wants to kill me by now.
To have things make more sense: we are working to help our teaching group grow - we had to cut a lot of people after Elder Barbosa left, and that means that we are left with almost no one to teach. SO, we have been hitting the rubber hard trying to look for new people - addresses from contacts, the Area Book, everything. It´s been a little frustrating because our biggest problem has been actually finding people at home. If the house actually exists (and it´s about 25% of them that are fake numbers or have been destroyed), then the person is NEVER home, even when they say they will be. I try to mark a time to pass by for the week and we mark it all right, with me reminding them about what day and time, etc. Then, when we actually get there, there are no signs of life and it is very annoying. I want some problems like the Word of Wisdom other than just walking from address to address with no sign of anything!
AHH!!! Sorry. But besides all that, this week has been very productive and I have learned a LOT. Training is supposed to be a teaching time, but I am learning way more than Elder Marx is. All - ALL - my actions are watched and noted, so I can´t do anything wrong. This is tough, but I´m doing my best and can do even better. We´re being obedient, we´re being creative on how to find people to teach, he does contacts like a pro now and got more addresses than I did on Monday, he´s learning how to make and complete thoughts in Português, he likes the things that I like...life is ok. At least I have a good companion, a good ward, a good district, and a good cause. The best cause, that is.
An experience worth writing: we were doing (or making? I don´t know/care) contacts and it all started with Elder Marx saying to a guy in a neighborly way "goood morning". At 7 at night. The guy stopped, and, drunk out of his rocker, proceeded to tell us that we were great and mighty men. He then asked what Elder meant, and I, the huge liar that I am, told him that it meant "baptism" in English (it had been a long day). I asked if we could teach him and he invited us to come over, right then and there, to his house (during this time it is raining pretty hard, and we don´t have umbrellas. Yipee.). We got there and he went up to his room on the second floor, which had a second lock, to let us in to his house. He lives on the same piece of land as his parents and it´s basically a complex, Brasilian style (so smaller and crazy). As he failed effort after effort to unlock his own door, we talked to his depressed Evangelical mother, who continued to speak about her trials and how she wished her son would stop "taking it to the neck" (ok, she didn´t actually say that, but she should´ve). He came down, beaten by his own front door, and said that we still had to teach him. I´ve gotten pretty darn good about dealing with drunks by now, so I told him that if he got the door open, we would teach him. If not, we would leave. He decided to take "the back door". This was not the best idea of all time; the back door consisted of a concrete wall (about 6 feet) and a balcony several feet about that, with metal rail protecting kids from falling. In the rain. With a drunk guy. With me positioned below him to catch him if he fell. Yeah. The ONLY reason he made it up there ok was because we were both praying that he would and not fall and die. So, after a mighty struggle with the alchohol-induced-super-jump-door-unlock, we got in to his house (through the front door). His house was actually pretty nice, and we sat down to teach him about the Restoration. It all went pretty well until about 2 minutes in when he asked if he could smoke - I told him not to, and if he would, after the lesson. After we talked about Christ and the Great Apostasy, he couldn´t stand it and got up and started opening the window to start smoking. I said - if you smoke, we´re leaving. He said - no you won´t. I said - yes-huh. And this continued for a good 20 seconds. Sorry Mom. He finally started smoking and we ended the message. He said he would be mad if we didn´t drink some coffee with him, so I invited the drunk man to get mad and we said no. So he gave us some quite tasty orange juice stuff. Then we left, with no commitment to return. That was Flávio.
We laughed for about 5 minutes after that one.
The church is true. I love you all. BE GOOD AND DO GOOD STUFF!
Elder Brown
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