Anyways, this week was a pretty solid one, to be honest. Not the greatest that I've had here, but one real blessing that we had was consistency. We managed 2 lessons everyday, except for 2 days. Knowing to have had 8 lessons in one day here, it seems a little discouraging, but I'm actually really happy to know that it worked out that way. It means that there is at least some degree of steadiness happening. My goal is to keep steady and rise higher.
I want to share two experiences in particular this week. The first is a lesson with our investigator Katy. She's in her young 20's with children, but single. She has a desire to follow her Father in Heaven, but sometimes feels that she isn't prepared to give it all yet. Earlier in the week we had talked to her with Irmao Filinto, who's in the High Council here. He's a boss, basically. He told us that she didn't seem to be taking things seriously, so we decided to take him and his wife Zinha on Saturday. Just before the lesson, we went to confirm with her, and Katy was acting weird, like she didn't want to talk to us anymore. Then she said she was just kidding. We were a little confused, but we taught her with Filinto and Zinha anyways. It was such a good experience to have Zinha testify to Katy about the blessings in her life. She shared how she went to church for 11 years as an investigator, because Filinto didn't want to marry her yet. Then all of a sudden, he changed, and now they're married and sealed in the temple! What a cool story! She said it was hard to not be a member of the chruch she went to for so long, but her faith kept her going. It was a really neat experience. The only sad thing is that Katy didn't go to chruch again, after promising on Saturday. Filinto passed by, but she just wasn't up for it.
The other neat experience happened yesterday. We taught a really big family, so there was a lot of noise. The mother, Vera, wasn't quite understanding what we were saying, so our homeboy Socrates (yes, you pronounce it like the philosopher too) starts explaining in Creole for us. I think that after all the Elders she's met, that was the first time that she understood that the Book of Mormon wasn't just our version of the Bible. That was neat, but then she had to run off to break up a kids fight. Her daughter Solette was with us for the first time. She really lives just outside of Sao Filipe in a different zone, but has talked to a lot of Elders. She had a lot of doubts about how she would know that the Church is true just by reading a book, so we went over the whole Moroni-Joseph Smith story again. The Spirit just felt so strong as we explained, nd we could tell that she was learning too. We ended up spending an hour and a half there, twice as long as a normal lesson should last, but we feel that it was well worth our time. I like working with this family.
We taught some Seventh Day Adventists in our area this week, and our member help kinda turned it into a Bible bash... it was fun trying to gain control of the conversation. We really aren't trying to fight. That's why oru message is about the Book of Mormon. The Bible is interpreted so many ways, it just becomes a battleground. We'll be better prepared to focus on the Restoration next time.
WEll, outta time! Sorry for the spelling errors, this computer has no backspace. Have a wonderful week!
Abraco,
Elder Penner
p.s. just want to point out that if my timing's correct, the 19 years later scene in Harry Potter happened in real life just 4 days ago. What do I wait for now?
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