This week I went on a division with the great Elder Schlichte, and somehow or other we got to talking about our love for music. Then he mentioned a band that I hadn't thought of in like forever, Wheezer! So I figured I'd give them a shoutout this week, seeing as the sun is shining harder than ever on the great island of Fogo. There were days this week in which I was drenched in sweat within the first 10 minutes of leaving the house. However, there is hope on the way; a few days ago at 9pm we actually had a light sprinkle of rain! The people here all say that once it rains, it'll cool down enough to be bearable. For now, we just watch and pray, I guess.
In the terms of what we accomplished, I feel like we had a great week. In the terms of what our investigators accomplished, I feel like we had a terrible one. Let's talk about the great stuff first! This week we had 11 new investigators, almost double of what we had last week! Also, we had the first day I've had here with 5 lessons with an investigator. I was pretty stoked about that, but then the next day we only had 1, haha. We still ended up having a great week with talking with investigators. We also talked a lot with the less-active members here, and have seen some good progress.
The problem was that none of our investigators went to church! We were so prepared to at least have a super solid 4 investigators there, but none of them showed up! We were pretty bummed out about that. Also, one of our most progressing investigators, Izildo, told us early this week that he didn't want to talk to us anymore. When we asked why, he just said "I just don't feel like it anymore." We were super bummed out, and we talked more and figured out that he just felt we moved too fast or something. Apparently he was under the impression that we were going to baptize him without him even going to church! But even after all that we talked with him, with his neighbor Zé (our Elder's Quorum President here) he still refused. We were pretty bummed out, but then Zé grabbed Izildo's sister Virginia, and made her sit down and listen a bit about the Book of Mormon. We had tried to talk to her before, but she just laughed and refused to listen any more as soon as we said the words "Joseph Smith." However, Zé was somehow able to convince her to read and pray about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon! So that was a pretty cool experience, and now we're pretty excited to come back and talk to her about how it was. I hope we have Zé with us again, he's pretty good at not taking no for an answer.
Some of the less-actives that we're working with are pretty cool. We met a woman named Nela, the wife of an active member, Zezito, who's been inactive for a few months. She's super busy with all the sewing that she does (a lot like Marlene from Praia's problems, actually) and just lost the habit of going, choosing instead to catch up on housework. We talked with her a lot about the sacrament and the blessings that it brings. Once we were done, I realized that we hadn't really let her talk so much, so I asked her how she felt. She said that she knew that these things are important, but she hasn't been feeling much support from her family in housework, so she's had to take care of all of it, on top of everything. Zezito promised right then and there that he would now be in charge of all laundry duties. That's a little more hefty here than in America, because that could mean handwashing a lot and waiting for things to dry before putting them away. She went to church yesterday, as promised! Also that Solangela that I mentioned went for the second week in a row! We're seeing a lot of blessings with that.
Funny story: yesterday at church we didn't have Gospel Essentials, so we went to the married couples class and they talked about communicating with your spouse and had all the couples say something sweet to their spouse. It was pretty awkward but also super funny to be there. It made me just a bit excited to have a relationship of my own when I get home. I'm gonna have to teach my future wife some Creolisms, because they're super funny!
That's all I have the time I have to talk for now! We're tearing it up here, as we always do! Keep firm in the faith. Talk to someone about the gospel. Have a great week!
Abraço,
Elder Penner
No comments:
Post a Comment