Oceans

This last week, we had the fun task of driving some missionaries that finally got their visas to go to Brazil. Here is a lot the same as in America, it's difficult to get a visa for Brazil, so the missionaries called there (which is like 80% of all missionaries from this country) get reassigned to serve here until they get it. Well, just recently our homeboy Holden Duarte, who works with visas for countries other than American ones, just managed visas for almost every Visa Waiter missionary in the mission. So we got to be their taxi for a bit. During this whole time, we got to drive down the main road by the ocean a lot, and I really got to appreciate the view. Therefore I name my update Oceans, after one of my preferred songs from Ghost Stories by Coldplay. Also because the other day we saw a guy carrying this HUGE fish over his back as we were driving. The thing was like as long as the guy was tall, it was big.

The days that we were driving people around this past week just seemed to suck up all the time out of our days. And once I finally got out to teach, my mind got fuzzy because of all the taxiing around I'd done that day. It's always such a relief to get into our area though, I just feel like I know what I'm doing so much more when I teach the gospel. Something I have been working on personally this past week is that I've been more bold in making sure that my investigators keep committments. When someone tells you "I've just been so busy" or "I haven't had time to read your book this week," it's easy to just tell them that it's okay, that they can just try harder then. However, I like Elder Hollands words on it, when he says that the first thing that we should do when we learn that an investigator hasn't been reading the Book of Mormon is to be devastated! I've been working on my attitude of complete devastation, and I already think it's making a difference. It's one thing to tell an investigator that the Book of Mormon is important, and it's another thing to show exactly how important it is to you by the way you talk about it. For example, we were talking to one of our investigators named Paula yesterday, and she told us she hadn't had time to read. I tried to give a different approach to it, asking what her goals were in life, and then showing her that the Book of Mormon can help her specifically in not only her own goals, but in the goals that God had for her. It's helped me to grow my testimony of it.

Sadly, Patrick didn't come to church yesterday, so he won't be prepared for baptism on the 30th. We thought it would be good to have him go with his friend Tony, a pretty recently reactivated member from that area. We found Tony yesterday and asked him what was up, and he told us that he didn't go because he didn't have the right kind of clothes. Elder Massey was like, man that doesn't even matter! So we taught him a bit about faith and making sure that the shame of the world doesn't affect our spiritual growth, to which we hope helped him out, because he still seemed pretty iffy about it. I honestly would go to church in a t-shirt and swim trunks if that was all I had, because the sacrament's too important to miss.

A funny thing also happened yesterday: we contacted a couple of guys standing outside of their house, and after a bit we realized that they were both a little tipsy. We were about to leave, but one of the guys who was on the phone just gave the phone to me, and so I ended up contacting a guy on the island of Boa Vista over the phone. Then I handed the phone back and then the guy gives me the BABY he was holding and I was like uhh I'm not supposed to hold babies so I just handed it over to the more sober of the two. It's weird to me how things that outside the mission are completely normal become so weird when you put on the badge. I felt so uncomfortable holding the baby for the few seconds that I did. But anyways that's an interesting moment in my week stay tuned for more adventures in awkward missionary situations.

The work is going good! Marlene is such a spectacular investigator, we're getting really excited for her baptism on the 7th. Elder Massey and I agree that it's about time that we got a baptism here!

Have a wonderful week! 

Abraço,

Elder Penner

p.s. I don't know when the Captain America movie comes out in theaters, but I want to know absolutely nothing, you hear?

I asked for a tour of their apartment, so that's the majority of the pictures I got this week.  I see he hasn't used up all the ranch I sent him last month.  

                         

Human After All

This week, Elder Massey and I made a big focus on making sure that we weren't getting lessons just to get the lessons. We slowed down a bit and evaluated on whether our teaching was really focused on helping them to be a progressing investigator, or if it was focused on helping them to understand their divine potential and showing them the faith that it takes to come unto Christ. That's why this week, I've decided to put my title as the Daft Punk song, Human After All. For we really are human, after all. I've noticed that I need to do just a bit better at that.

In other news, the week just seemed to zip by. We also made it a goal to renew our inventory of investigators a bit, to help us to focus on those more prepared to take action on what we teach. One of our investigators Carmelito kind of describes the situation we have to deal with a lot: on Saturday, we gave a lesson to him on obedience and pretty much made him promise to come to church. We asked if there was anything that would stop him, and he said no. We finally find him on Sunday afternoon after finding his house empty before church. He told us that he went to a party and didn't come back until 9am. GAh.

We have a newer investigator who we marked with for the 30th, his name's Patrick. He's a super cool guy, and he likes our message. We found him at the less-active Jailson's house, and our first plan was to help them to progress and become active together, but we fear that it's not going to work out like we planned. This week, we're trying to get a firm, active member to be a stronger support for him, and in turn, Jailson. I think with a lot of work and coordination we could pull this one off, but pray for us all the same!

Lately I've been focusing on the words that the Apostle Russel M. Nelson gave on making the Sabbath Day a real delight. I'm trying to make sure my thoughts are in the right place, especially on Sunday. Elder Massey and I also try to make a good dessert on Sunday Evenings, which I've begun to call our "Sabbath Delight"

I don't have much time to talk today, so I think I'll leave it here, but I hope that your second full week of April will be a great one! This week is going to be a little more crazy, because a lot of Visa Waiters here got their Visas to Brazil, and will be leaving this week. So there's going to be a little transfer inside of the transfer... stay tuned...

Love you all! Fika drêto!

Elder Penner

Don't Let it Break Your Heart

I think Coldplay's fun song gives a good phrase to go with Elder Holland's talk this Conference. He basically told us that when tomorrow comes, "don't let it break your heart!" The real world is obviously different from the Conference Center, from the MTC, from that special testimony meeting. However, that does not mean that we have to get discouraged! The Lord loves us, and He's always on our side, He's always rooting for us all along the way.

And boy, was He rooting for Elder Massey and I along the way! What with Transfers, a Mission Leadership Council, and GenConf happening, we had very little time to go out and teach in our area. When we did though, we found the true blessings of the Lord. I think that we didn't have much more than a solid 12 hours in our area, but we somehow managed to get 13 lessons taught, and found a whole lot of sick new people.

We also managed to have some investigators show up for Conference. Mudinho and Neisha came with their daughter, and I think that Mudinho almost hit every session. Paulo (who's waiting for marriage papers to become a member) came to a session as well, and so did an investigator we had named Belarmino. Belarmino recently started coming to church, and so we're really excited about the progress that he's been making. He has expressed to us that he wants to wait a while to be sure about baptism, so we've been working on making him feel comfortable. He said that he really liked Conference, especially Priesthood Session.

Other cool news, we talked to Marlene (mother of a member, Kenny) and she finally chose a date for her baptism! It's so cool to see her at long last get over her fears and take that leap of faith! Last visit, we gave her every baptismal date in the month of May and told her to choose by next visit. We came back expecting to hear a date later in the month, but she confidently told us that she wanted the 7th, to which I said a quiet prayer of thanks. We're so happy for her, and we told her that we're going to power through the missionary lessons (she literally only has one hour a week to talk with us) to help her feel as comfortable as possible. She didn't make it to Conference, but we think that it's because of the super busy schedule that she upholds. It usually only works for her to go to church early Sunday morning. I mean, she could've gone to priesthood session, but I'm not sure how high that was on her priority list.

Highlights of Conference: President Monson giving two legendary messages with a combined time of about 6 minutes, President Uchtdorf's literal massacre of the male YSAs with the comment "if the perfect girl really is out there, do you really think that she'll go for you?" to which our chapel started roaring, and of course Elder Holland touching our hearts with the picture of the dinosaur chasing children. In all reality though, I found all the messages of Conference to be really inspiring. I'm also seeing the blessings that the temple is bringing to people, because Sister Zhuwaki (who's in my district) just happens to be from Zimbabwe! How neat is that? She gets to go home to see a temple built in her country!

Time flies when you're having fun and being a little stressed at the same time! Hope that you all have an enjoyable week reviewing the inspired messages we got these past two days!

Abraço,

Elder Penner

On the Run

Well, transfers happened! And guess what? I'm staying! Actually, I don't think I'll be leaving for another two transfers, because the secretary position is a 6 month calling. That's how President has set it up, and I don't see it changing soon. That's not to say that things haven't changed, though, because I get to be District Leader again! Varzea became part of another district now, and so our dupla here is the only Elders in this district. It'll be interesting how the DL responsabilities go with the secretary ones.

Anyways, the fast-paced, non-lyrical song On the Run by Pink Floyd pretty much describes my morning. I drove people around in the Hiace all morning, and as always, people just don't seem to be in the right place at the right time with the right things like I want them to. It's okay, I got to see my boy Elder Nemelka today, who's becoming Praia Zone Leader on his 5th transfer! How neat is that? I also got to drive Sisters Tongi, Haycock, and Johnson around a bit, which was neat because they're all going home in a few days.

Some really neat things happened this week, mostly at church yesterday. So you know about that Jailson kid that I talked about last week? The one who I was exasperated with? Well, he finally made it to church yesterday! I was super happy, and he even brought his friend Tony, who we'd been working with as well. However, we found out during church that Tony was actually a member, and he hadn't been to church for a long while as well! That's okay, we got two less-actives to come this week instead of one! Also, Paulo (the absolute boss that he is) brought his friend Roberto to church as well! We'd talked to Roberto once, but never found the time to pass by his house again after he missed an appointment with us. Well, we were surprised to find out that he was waiting for us when we got to the chapel.

I hope you all had a Happy Easter Sunday yesterday as well! Right now, I'm gonna get super stoked for CONFERENCE WEEKEND, the weekend that only happens twice a year where the whole world gets STRAIGHT REVELATION FROM GOD. Grab your study journals, open your notes on your iPhones, and get ready to write down what our Heavenly Father's trying to say to you! I'm going to probably spend most of my week talking to everyone I meet that we're going to hear the voice of the Prophet of God! Be excited!

Anyways, that's a fair amount of what's been happening here in the Cabo. In the words of Bob Saget,

Abraço,

Elder Penner

                         

Living on a Prayer

Wooooooooooaaaaaaaahhhhh, we're halfway there!

I've been waiting to use that one. I've also got some dorky ones coming for near the end of the mission, so be prepared. My update was pretty short and pretty weak last week, so I plan to talk just a bit more this week.

Well, this week passed by a little bit more quickly than others, and I think that a lot of it is because the life in the office calmed down a lot. We haven't had too much to worry about, which meant that I was able to catch up on a lot of little things that have been getting past me. But it's mostly been a pretty boring week in that aspect.

Something cool that happened is that the new couple arrived! Elder and Sister Alvarez come from the city of Highland, Utah (though they lived most of their lives in Mexico.) They're a really neat couple, and their main responsibilities are to help out the local stakes and districts with their auditing, and making sure that money doesn't get lost in the numbers. They may also be taking on some of the responsibilities that we have now, but President wants to give it a week or so. I really hope that they end up taking some responsibilities. At that point, we'll be able to go teach at least by around 3, and we like to teach. Like a lot.

The person I'd like to talk a little bit about this week is called Jailson. He's an inactive member for some time now, but will always sit down and talk with us. He likes to read the Book of Mormon, he knows (and for the most part, follows) most of the commandments that we teach, and he has a desire to do what's right. The problem? For some reason, he just simply hasn't made it to church. It's not that he doesn't want to, because every time we talk to him he says that he does. We try to ask him what's stopping him from going, and he just says "I don't even know!" There has to be something, or else he would be going! It's sometimes difficult to understand, so I plan to pray a lot more about his specific situation, and how we can help.

Something really cool that I noticed yesterday was when I studied the first lesson in Chapter 3 of Preach My Gospel, which talks mostly about the Restoration. One of the main goals behind the lesson is to explain the character and purpose of the Godhead. Our loving Heavenly Father sent His Son to give us His teachings, and to help us to return to His presence. He and His Son appeared to Joseph Smith so that the world could once again know how to become like Him. He sent us the Holy Ghost as well, so that we can know for certain that this is His way, and not some kind of foolish trick. He cares for each of us, so He has everything planned out accordingly. Our church has a very unique way of defining the Godhead, in the way that we believe that God is what we all could be ourselves. It doesn't deny His almighty power, but rather it gives us hope and the knowledge that He truly is our Father.

Keep up the faithful service to your fellow men! Spread the wonderful message of the Living Christ this Easter! Love you all!

Abraço,

Elder Penner

Holland Road

Although a very very good Mumford and Sons song, I couldn't really relate it to anything on my mission so far. That is, until Elder Massey and I started listening exclusively to Conference talks by Jeffery R. Holland in the car as we did our errands this past week. So there ya have it, we're living the Holland Road.

This week (as does most weeks) had some ups and some downs. The sad part is that the people that we were preparing for baptism by the end of the month kinda fell through because they still haven't gotten to church. We're not too discouraged by it though, because they'll have such a powerful experience watching General Conference that they'll just be begging for baptism. I know that's how I feel when I watch it, especially when our prophet Thomas S. Monson gets up to speak. He's such a boss.

As for cool things that happened, we learned that Fatima's papers have been found over in Guinea, so they could get them within a month! Then after that, it's only a trip to the government building so they can mark a date for marriage! They're super excited, they've been waiting for this for a while now, and we're super excited too.

Anyways, gotta go this week! Love ya all!

Elder Penner

Muppet of a Man

This week I drew my influence from The Muppets, the song where they figure out if they're a man or if they're a Muppet, because that's how I've been feeling this past week. I've come to realize that to get people to do what you want (i.e. talk to you about bill payments n stuff) then you have to be a man. You can't be a muppet. I've been trying to be less of a muppet and more of a man, and it's slowly starting to work!

Well, I can't talk all that much this week, because people kept showing up and wasting my sacred computer time, but this week has been such a sweet one! We met our goal of 18 lessons this week, which is a feat seeing that 5 out of 7 days we didn't leave until at least 5! We're killing it over here!

Some cool/funny things that happened this week: our investigator Marlene, who's been having troubles with feeling that the Book of Mormon is true, just bore a very powerful testimony about it yesterday. She had tears in her eyes as she explained how she had tried reading early in the morning instead of late at night, in order to be more attentive while reading it, and she's just starting to really feel that it's true. How neat is that? Also, we taught the Law of Chastity to William and Mary, and William just turns to his mom and is like "But mom, that means you're breaking it! You and Dad aren't married!" to which she replied "But I didn't know!" We laughed and went on to explain that she's not going to be condemned because she didn't know, but that now is the time to act and start to follow it. She was really eager to follow it then, and told us that she was going to get her husband to stop drinking so that they could get married! Win-win situation there!

The Lord works in the funniest ways, but they're always the best ways. I hope y'all have a wonderful week, and that you'll find joy in the little things!

Abraço,

Elder Penner