Where the River Bends

This week was exhausting. Truly, extremely exhausting.  In the mission, everybody's been tossing around the word "diligently," as in working until you drop dead, and then some.  It would be safe to say that this week came somewhat close to that kind of work.  Xl  But I guess that's a good thing, because it's only when we put forth our best efforts that we begin to see the best results.

The weather here is really starting to be more of my enemy than my friend. The sun is scolding hot, but the mornings and nights are extremely cold. Then, throw the heavy rains in and you got a wonderful Xis Missionário (~hamburger made from missionaries). Okay, that probably doesn't make too much sense, but oh well. The nice thing is that a few of our investigators all live extremely close together.  So, we pass a few minutes at one house, go to the neighbor, then two houses down, then return to the other neighbor.  Unfortunately, even when they're so close together, one can still get really soaked when they forget their umbrella.  >_<  Suffice it to say that I've learned my lesson.

Last Saturday, we received a call from someone that had been switching between wanting and not wanting to be baptized.  Expecting the usual "I don't know if I want to be," we picked up the phone and received a wonderful surprise: "I've decided, I want to be baptized, Today!"  What a marvelous thing. My companion and I began rushing like crazy just to set everything up and find somebody that wasn't doing anything to attend.  A few hours later, we witnessed the baptism of Cleonir, and all the stress we had with helping her became completely worth it. 

If there's is one thing I like about the people here, it's that they have a lot of confidence and respect for one another. The best example of this is that the one who cuts the cake always cuts it evenly and always chooses first. I think about our normal custom (one cuts, the other decides) and I see how many of our customs are built off of mistrust. Love and respect are two principles that walk hand in hand and are extremely important for all of us to develop one for the other. Even if the person we are talking about is your worst enemy of all, we should learn to love and to help them. There are only so many people we will come to know and meet, because time on the earth is extremely short. Why then should we lose the great opportunities to make good friends or to be good friends while we can? 

That's about it for the week. The rest is just the usual labors and things I do every day at this point in time.

Elder Angus

Words of the week:

Bispo (biss-poo) Meaning Bishop.

Bispinho (biss-pee-nyoo) Meaning Little Bishop. Apparently returned missionaries can become like these. ;)

Photos:

-Eating Fried fish at Maria's house (I think he forgot this picture because there were only two in the email)

-Chimarron

-Baptism of Cleonir