VC'S Não Vão Acreditar!‏ [VCs will not believe!]

From February 15, 2016

This week has been a blast. We first had a Monday making Cuquinhas. It's a fun, little salty snack that they have down here. So we made some of those in the home of a recent convert. SEE PHOTOS BELOW! We made them and then ate them. I noted the recipe as well; send a letter and I'll send it to you! But besides that, we spent the better part of our P-day in their home. We hope that that won’t be a common practice!

The other things that we've been doing have included installing and then disassembling a sensor for automated lighting systems. Long story short, there are certain people in this world that just want to complain. So we got our hands dirty and a bit chopped up for little benefit. And then we were working with the mother of a recent convert who might just be a baptism that I get to see while I'm here. Nothing promised as of yet.

Fun story this week, we were in Xarquinho, for you who don't know, it's a bairro [neighborhood] FAR, far away from where we usually work. And we had to run back to the branch to help out with a baptism. On the way, we did something that I've done only a few times: Changed a tire of a woman with her son. Returning, we were flying in the car of a member to get back, noticed a car stopped on the other side of the road, flipped around a the next round about, helped her out, and then flew to the branch to the baptism with (you guessed it) GREASY PALMS! We got there just in time to be in the pictures. End of story, woman was happy for the help, not interested in the message, but happy for the help, we got our hands dirty, and we got to watch the recent convert in the photo below baptize his oldest daughter! CONGRATS JERIMIAS!

That's all for this week! Until next time!

Elder Joel A. Smith

Making the Cuquinhas

Making the bread for the Cuquinhas (the witch's cauldron)

Sharing messages with less actives

Brazilian Sun and Storms on the Horizon‏

From February 8, 2016

This week I wanted to have a moment of rest in my endless battle against my old enemy: Slothfulness! I took a little look at how I've been overall in my last little while of work, and I've noticed a decrease in activity. That means that I have to pick up my pace.

We had a good week. Not everyone we taught is progressing, but we hope to see some improvements here soon. Unfortunately, some of the dates that we've marked have fallen through as they have been unable to go to church or something else is not allowing them.  We'll get to the center of it.

My week had some fun encounters in the rain, we were running from one lesson to another, and we got caught up in a tempest. We got wet, but while we were wet we made a contact that we said we'd go back and visit. On the return however, the family was not ready for us, deferring for a bit later. We knocked two doors and found a young woman who had already been visited by missionaries but had not yet been converted. We had the opportunity to teach, but the father talks a lot. We're hoping on our next visit we can help them progress. We then have been occupied in finding new people to teach. We have also been surprised a lot this week with surprise storms. So we have been hot and very dried out and then wet very quickly. And we've entered in the week of Carnaval. That means I will be asking a lot of people to turn off the TV when we enter. DON'T LOOK UP PICTURES!!

That's all for this week, have a good one! And until next time!

Elder Joel A. Smith

Greetings Brasil, We Have NEWS

This week has been a struggle to relearn the principle of love and charity. That has been an ugly little struggle this last while, however I have managed to reapply the feelings and that has helped a lot.

I have remained here for quite a while and it'll be likely in the next...4 weeks to be on my way to a new location. But as I'm still working here: We have 2 dates marked for a baptism, however, one has some relationship and personal issues to work out. We are hunting investigators that have potential to be baptized soon! We have this wonderful family that are less-actives (That would be, 2 actives, one more or less, one that is in a state of rebellion, and the other isn't baptized yet). Playing cards with them is entertaining while we talk about what we can do to help the others get to church. And then we have the age-old investigators that are... dealing with issues. Hopefully this will be changing here soon.

As for stories of the week, we had a lot of sun, I'm dark for the first time in my life. MEANING that it's going to be an absolute pain to go back to the same color. And I got burned... a lot. Then in the last 3 days RAIN!!! Hallelujah! So the stories are these: we went to the house of one of our investigators and found the sleeping kitties in the photos below. They aren't the same in race or parents so the fact that they are putting up with each other is quite nice. The one thing that we got a kick out of was what happened when they were fighting. The grey one, despite being smaller beats on the black one and he just gets grumpy and then he gets beat more. The grey one only practices with him.

Have a good week, take care, pray always!

Elder Joel A. Smith

#Bronap

Lunch with Sister Luciana

Selfie in tree with Elder Ibarra