Brasil, Food And Everything Falling

Hello family, friends and leaders!

This week I have been on a roller coaster of events and feelings. One such has been anxious. We have had a ton of running from one place to the other to try to find more people to teach. But we had a battle of finding people who could be taught in the hours that we had available! We made a lot of phone calls as well, as that's a part of our work.

This week we got to participate in a marriage in another ward.  It was neat to watch two people make the promise of being loyal for all of this life; I just hope they make the next step and make it forever! I have been a little preoccupied with the people we are teaching here. One man, we got a date for him marked to be baptized on the 15th of October.  We'll be working him hard, but we want him to do most of the work, as he's the one that should be making the decisions.

Alright, I'm exhausted from this week; we had a lot of getting up early, lack of sleep, and trips to the center that got us all wound up and wrung out. We now are looking at trying to find more people to teach. That's tricky, as in the area here isn't the biggest part of the city, so almost everyone has already seen the missionaries at some point or other. That's the tough part for us, but we'll get it.

Until Next!

Elder Joel A. Smith

Elder Smith and Elder Santos

 

Brasil New and Companions

[from 9-19-16]

Another week has come and gone; fortunately I'm doing alright in work and I'm happy that my new companion is Brazilian! I'll be on my way home with someone that is native to the country helping me keep my head on what I need to be doing. I'm liking this area a lot; I'm sad that soon enough I'll be leaving it.

This last week we were laying the foundation for a wall, [and we were] about eaten by bugs! Anyway, our work will be finished next week. We have to go back to put in the concrete. But I'll tell you all how that goes this next week. And I have some fun stuff to come. I just hope that next week I'll have a little more time to finish the stories. Until next week!

Elder Joel A. Smith

Brasil, and Funny Shakes

[from 9-12-16]

Hello everyone!

This week has been almost uneventful as I got myself sick. even if I recovered. But my companion has been reminding me over and over that I'm on my last leg ...  Not that I want him to, but it's true.

We have been visiting a couple in the ward that has had some interesting problems. They are getting much better. However, we still can't get them to resolve the rest. It takes a while to convince a Brasilian to do something. But we'll get them going.

After all that we had a couple of lunches that we had to travel almost out of town to get to! Like 30 minute bus rides! Then we have had some moments this week where I just looked at my companion and asked "What?" Like the drunk guy who wanted to walk to Santa Catarina. He stopped us and asked us how to get there. So that was fun.

Other than that we're trying to get ourselves back on track with finding new people to teach. We now have a list to find the less active members of the ward, but it'll be fun to find them all.

Were happy and having fun. Hope to hear you are all well!

Talk to you all next week!

Joel A. Smith

The District!

My Brasilian Week

I have been thinking over what I could share of this week. And I think the best answer I can give is that I have been doing as I always have. I have been seeing the people and sharing the knowledge that I have acquired.

This week it has rained a lot. We actually got a lot less done than we otherwise could have, but that's a part of the work. We got to family home evening this week and had fun, got stopped by a drunk that started calling himself "god" and on top of all that we have had some fun with a couple of the families here. The story of the drunk guy was actually like this:  We were on our way to a lesson when we got called to by him, he talked to us for only one minute before he started accusing us of not taking him seriously and started calling me "Judas"... Then he started making comments like "as God is in all things, I'm god." I tried my best to not lose my patience with the guy, but that took a lot, as we were already almost late to another appointment.

Anyway, we had trouble with the rain actually locking us in while it was coming down so hard. We were either going to be wet, or sick, neither sounded good. So we avoided it. Then we had some good experiences with teaching a couple about the need to have a religion in such a wild world; it gets better, as the current state of Brasil is in chaos thanks to the presidential change here. So that'll be fun for the next week. Other than that we are working to get everything back into balance. But we're alright. Hope to hear from you all next week!

Elder A. Smith

Obstacle Course During a Ward Activity