The Lazy Song

 

 

Hiking to the top of the volcano last P day

 

If there's one strange thing I've learned on my mission, it's that I rather like Bruno Mars. Here, there is very limited amounts of English music, and Bruno Mars happens to be one of the few artists they really like here, so, while I would rarely choose to listen to him back home, a certain appreciation for him as happened in my life since hitting Cape Verde. Funny how that works, hey?

As Bruno Mars once sang, he told us that 'today I don't feel like doing anything, I just want to lay in my bed'. Maybe there's a reason why they like him so much here, because it seemed that, this weekend, as we went about to invite people to come to conference, they were busy singing the same song, not vocally, but in action :P hahaha. We gave a pretty good effort, going out and passing multiple houses before each session of conference, including taking a detour to one of our lower zones, Maria de Cruz and Domingo Lobo, just to get people to show up at church. I thought going into this past week that, having church 5 different times, would make it SUPER easy to get investigators to come, but no matter how any people we passed, or how many houses we went to, everybody was either 'too tired' or  had a 'sore body' or didn't want to lie and tell us they would come and then not show up, so would just outright say no.

 

We succeed when we invite!

 

  It was a pretty interesting experience as we walked all the way to the bottom of our area and back up to the top, pouring sweat, to show up in the church without any investigators to an already started Sunday Morning Session. It made me sad cuz being in the church was something that made me feel so happy, yet there were so many outside of those walls that weren't able to feel that same happiness, just because they would rather lay on the ground of their concrete house. I guess it made me realize that, part of my job is to help these people feel that love and that happiness when we're there, so that they can make that decision to no feel like not 'doing anything' or to 'lay in (their) bed'.

We were very lucky to have had a pretty blessed week this week, outside of the struggles we faced with General Conference. We were pretty darn lucky to be able to watch all the sessions live for the most part. Because of a bunch of stuff going on this week, with Conference, a Special training from President, and the three different zones we have, it was tougher to work at the rate or the amount that we wanted to, but it ended up being pretty good :)

Just about the highlight from this past week was a lesson we taught, to this guy named Edmir. Edmir is a high school teacher here, and we had taught his colleague Carlos back a bit, when I was with Elder Pettingill, and we had returned trying to find him, and ended up teaching his buddy. Edmir has to be about the MOST educated person I've ever taught, so while it was a good lesson, it was SUPER intimidating, as he gave absolute undivided attention to us as we spoke, and asked some pretty darn good questions. One thing I absolutely loved about the lesson was a point in time where he asked a very good question, in saying, 'why is it that people with religion and are doing the right things are ALWAYS having problems, when those who choose to do just whatever they want have an easy, perfectly fine life?', and in the moment, the Spirit gave me the answer in saying, 'Don't you think Satan is trying way harder with those people trying to follow the Lord, and those that don't, don't have those same struggles, because they're already on his side?'. I had a personal proud moment then, as I could tell that this guy, who is obviously quite learned, really thought about that answer, and then realized it was probably right. At the end of the lesson, we asked him, 'hey, you got any questions for us?' to which he responded, 'you know, I do, but I really wanna think about this message first. Thank you'. It was SO DANG COOL, and my companion, Elder Mason, walked out of that lesson on a high cuz of how cool it was. It was so cool to see how excited he was, and also how much the Lord helped us in that lesson. Hopefully when we go back he's ready to accept it all and get baptized! 

Anyways, that's a major gist of my week, though not entirely. Hope y'all have a rad week, love ya!

Elder Massey

Doing laundry the hard way!

Gifts from home!