Tuesday 27 October 2015

Every Teardrop is a Waterfall

This week's title is a little less philosophical and a little more literal.

Just about half of our week resulted in us ending up pretty wet, since Cova Figueira was blessed with abundant rain. We had a pretty good streak from Wednesday to Friday of just being in a state of wetness. It wasn't all that fun :P

On Thursday, we had left our house at about 1, to go out and walk to Tinteira, while it was raining slightly; it really didn't appear to be all that bad, since it was the eauivalent of a windy drizzle. However, it became pretty apparent that, as we walked, those little raindrops resulted in feeling like going through a waterfall; by the time we hit Tinteira, about 45 minutes later, we were thoroughly soaked. Elder Mason took a video on his camera of pouring water out of his shoe. It meant that everything from our shirts, ties, pants, shoes, planners, scriptures, and even pamphlets were just totally wet. Needless to say, as much fun as it is to walk 45 minutes in the rain, it was pretty miserable. 
Singing in the Rain with Elder Mason
(He shared that as they were getting soaked they started to sing "Called to Serve" in Portuguese and it helped to cheer them up....)

However, as I walked, I sorta realized to myself that, I wouldn't do this for just no reason; I would never actively CHOOSE to walk that much and be that soaked, but I did so because I knew it was what the Lord wanted. In putting our faith in him, the Lord was willing to bless us with the success we needed that day; we taught a lesson in literally every house we stopped at in Tinteira that day, meaning a solid 5 in just Tinteira alone. It was a super cool blessing. 

It wasn't too nice, though, when a lady, who graciously let us into her house, told us that, 'as nice as it was that we walked, it really wasn't necessary to make such a sacrifice, since Jesus already died for our sins' (you can be THAT felt good to hear, eh?) I responded in a sorta of manner of, 'well, if he died for all our sins, then it's all the more important we walk hear so you can know how to be saved from them!'. Basically, I think she was just upset that we walked so far to teach in a town dominated by her church :P it was a FUN lesson to teach. She kept trying to throw down and argue with us, but we gave her nothing. It's in lessons where people try to go against you that you really realize how true the gospel we live is; you just get this overwhelming feeling of certainty that this IS the way that God determined for us. I love it. 

Just about our coolest moment from the week was teaching our investigators Edmir and Carlos, who are High School teachers. We've been teaching them for a while, and had the opportunity this week to teach them the 3rd lesson, or the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As we taught, it became clear how prepared they are to receive the gospel at this point in time, Just about every question we asked them, they answered it with Preach My Gospel-esque accuracy. When we got to baptism, I explained it, and Carlos was like, 'yeah, I just got one question, when is it that I know I'm ready to be baptized?'. It was such a beautiful question that I was so taken aback and had no clue how to answer it :P hahaha! After explaining to them how simple it really is to know, they resulted that, while they want to follow the true church, they need a certain amount of time to know for sure. They promised a visit to our church this coming Sunday, and agreed to be baptized when they know that it is true. They've come quite the long way, from almost being contentious with us, to being like best friends with us. They are SO cool. 

We had interviews with President Mathews today, which was super good; he mentioned that he enjoys reading my blog here and there, and even gave me a suggestion for some themed-content. (He really looks out for me hahaha). He mentioned to us that, in our area, he almost changed our focus from working with investigators to working with inactive members exclusively, but decided not to; however, our focus WILL be changing, just in our area, to working more so with inactive people, since our area has a TON, and a little less with investigators. 

Should be fun :) 

Love y'all! 

Elder Massey

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