I Love Joshua, He's hilarious!
Well family this week was very educational, and very difficult. It has rained the entire week, which means here in Brazil that no one wants to talk to you or come answer their door. However most will rush you into their house when they see two soaking wet boys standing on their doorstep -- if they actually come to the door that is. lol So this week was difficult, but the story of this week goes like this. We were teaching a woman and her two children, they live in another city. She is illiterate. Her children are 8 and 10. They are unbelievably poor and have no mannerism or level of decency, or etiquette of any kind.making it very difficult to teach-- almost impossible. She also has a crush, at 36 years-old, on my companion and has the attention and comprehension of a child younger than Joshua. So we have to explain everything like we would to the primary and then repeat it another 7 times. We found out Saturday that even doing this she didn't get it. We had the interview Friday. Our ZL passed her as ready to be baptized, but asked that we return the next day to really get her excited. When we got there her family was visiting, her sister and brother in-law and his daughter. The sister is very catholic and didn't say anything bad or wrong, but neither did she say anything good or helpful. However she did ask for a blessing and we blessed everyone in the house upon their request with a blessing of comfort and it was very spiritual and uplifting and I thought to myself if this doesn't excite her, nothing will. We then taught and answered questions and left an amazing lesson, but still she said I'll go to your church one week and the next I'll go to the catholic church, and she was not of the disposition to be baptized either. We taught and explained and tried to help, but when we left her mind wasn't changed. We called our LZ to say that we wouldn't be having a baptism because my comp didn't want to baptize her with her lack of testimony and from what we saw her obvious incomprehension of everything we had taught. Our LZ was Not Happy and told us that she was ready and we needed to return and get her excited for her baptism! My comp fought a little because we were already back in our city and without a way to return. Our LZ told us to return in the morning before church--to do it then. Neither of us wanted to or agreed with our LZ, but I convinced my companion to pray with me asking for guidance and then helped him to follow through and follow our leaders instructions. Sunday we woke up at 5 in the morning and got ready in our suits and in a cold morning mist walked 2-3 miles to catch a 6:30 bus and at 7 we were in her house again trying to encourage her to come to church, if she wouldn't be baptized to just come to church. After an hour she persisted that she couldn't because she had a cold and we had to leave her behind and go to church. Lesson of the week, when you know that your leaders are wrong, but still do what they ask, they have no way to blame you for their being wrong or that things didn't work out. Neither me nor my comp enjoyed Sunday morning, but the best way to turn the day around is to go home, break your fast, eat 4 cookies and drink a liter of kool-aid! =) after that Sunday was pretty good. lol
I have to go now. Have a good week and I'll talk to you all next week
Peace Out
Elder Lund
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