Dear People of the NOrth,
Greetings! I totally agree with Ryan, portuguese is so much better! I have found that i actually struggle when i pray in english haha. I feel my portuguese has improved alot in this area. People have been complimenting me on how well i speak and sometimes think i am brazillian! Sometimes i answer our cell phone and the other elders think i am my brazillian comp.. haha i love it! I am not sure how but in these next 6 months i am really going to try to better my portuguese. I want to master it. SPEAKING of next 6 months, i have reached my 1 year and 6 months mark! HOLY COW I AM OLD! It doesnt seem like it though.. President will be leaving in the end of june and i leave in the middle of july so i asked him if before he goes we (my group) could have lunch at his house and if he could give us the final blessing he gives all the missionaries going out. He agreed and so we will be his last group to go out, im so excited!!
My comp woke up sick this morning and wouldnt leave the bathroom lol. We had tacos and pizza last night (tacos actually dont exist here, but the bishops wife makes some pretty dang good ones). It has been HOT HOT HOT. Yesterday was probably the hottest day in my whole life. I was sweating so much i thought i would melt! I have been hearing about all the crazy earthquakes and stuff, can anyone say LAST DAYS!? Oh speaking about that i had an interesting “discussion” with a Jehovas Witness. I really enjoyed it because i learned a lot about their religion. I have no interest to do theology or anything like that but i really do like understanding other peoples doctrines and beleifs.
Unfortunately Andreia who was supposed to be baptized last week didnt pass the interview because she smoked. Then she has pretty much dissappeared, i think she has started going to her friends house a lot. So today we will finally find her and see if things are good for this week. We dont have any other firm baptismal dates, one is a cool kid that was breaking almost every commandment known, and miraculously has somewhat changed his life around. He should get baptized in the next couple of weeks.
Next week we will have our zone conference and the week after that we will have transfers! We will see what happens. This week we had a huge miracle. Unfortuantely our ward is not very good when it comes to retention, so already we were seeing some of our recent converts fall away. One, who is called Juninho (ju-neen-yo) didnt go and we found out he said he didnt want to go anymore. We went over to the house where he always plays computer games and left the 3rd message about the gospel of jesus christ. Afterwards he left with us and we walked over to his house and as he gave up some water i told him his friend Jefferson (that kid who has lots of problems) had gone to church. Juninho felt really bad and we decided to go visit Jefferson. We all read the Book of Mormon together and afterward Juninho said the closing prayer (he hates doing it) and asked for forgiveniss and for help in doing the right things and keeping the commandments. It was amazing! THEN after that he asked me to help him write his testimony so he could bear it this Sunday. HOW AWESOME IS THAT!? Before he was saying he didnt want to go tochurch anymore… miracles happen!
I have been reading recently the teachings of the prophets books (old Sunday school manuals) and i am really learning alot about our past prophets. I made a goal in my life to read all of them. The church has SO MANY useful materials and many people dont take advantage of them. Today I read about Joseph F. Smith. He was shipped of when he was 16 to serve a mission ALONE in Hawaii! His first task was to learn the language and he said he could converse noramally with a Hawaiann after only a MONTH. THAT my friend is the gift of tounges. It is such a blessing to have a prophet of God on the earth today. I sometimes feel an ungrateful feeling. Sure we can say we are thanful for a latter day prophet, but how do we SHOW it? Do we actually pay attention to what he says and put those teachings into practice? I testify Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God and through him we can know Gods will for us.
Have a wonderful week and BE A MISSIONARY! I promise many blessings from heaven to those who DO Gods sacred work. Want blessings? Then magnify your calling and share the gospel!
Love,
Elder Parker J. Boyack
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 at 9:52 am and is filed under mission. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
