Tuesday 1 December 2015

I Stand Corrected

(So I just realized that last week's letter never got posted...better late than never!  Sorry - no pictures)

23 November 2015


Well, coming to the end of this week, I guess I can stand with Ezra Koenig and say that I wasn't exactly right on what I thought would happen.

So, a large part of this week we spent working towards setting up the area for Elder Mason to take over with a new companion, as this past week was the 6th week of the transfer. Also, being the last week of Elder Mason's training, he got the opportunity to step up and lead out on lessons and teaching and such, which meant a little less stress for me :P hahaha. It also meant that going to certain areas would've been the last time for me going there, so I was saying partial good-byes and taking pictures throughout the week with people I wanna remember and such, however, I found out that it really wasn't necessary to do so. 

We did have some cool parts to this week. We found out that our further out area we work in, Tinteira, is getting a car paid by the stake to bring people on Sundays for the coming month, which was no more  than a small miracle. We also found some people in Tinteira that are pretty dang cool. One such was a younger woman named Livia, who's house was one I had never knocked on, and I decided that we should give it a go, since we had a little bit of time to kill. We knocked on the door, and they answered and basically ushered us in, which was cool. We had briefly explained our message and what not, and asked for a few minutes to talk, and this girl, Livia, was like, 'well, I am REALLY busy, but I can make 10 minutes for God' and I was like YESSSSS. It turned out she had never spoken to the Elders before (a rare feat for Fogo), and doesn't have a specific religion, because there are so many around that say they are true, but she has no clue which one is, and believe they all more or less profess one thing, and act another way. I love it when people ask questions like that, cuz the First Lesson really answers all those questions so well. She was super willing to do our invites, and was open to us coming back. She started to laugh a lot at the end cuz I kept asking her questions and it was kinda awkward cuz we still had a few things I felt we needed to ask, but they all just loaded off at once :P I had to be like 'okay, I KNOW I ask a LOT of  questions, but I just have ONE more, I swear' and she'd start laughing. It was funny. 

We've been finding that in our working towards helping less active people come back to church that they really are warming up to us, instead of being a bit cold or harsh as they were a few weeks back. We've started by doing Family Home Evening's with quite a few of them, which is something the mission wants us to be doing. It was really fun this week actually, we went to do a family night, and I suggested we started out with a hymn, and the less active mom was like, 'lets sing Mais Perto Quero Estar! I love that one!' I guess it goes to show that the fire of the gospel is in everyone, we just gotta help them find it! 

So, come Sunday, like I had mentioned, I had been almost expecting a transfer call to go somewhere else, and so at church I said good bye to a few people and took pictures with a few and such, and we had even planned to each lunch at a member's house so that we could let them know what was happening when we got the call from President. Well, Sunday consisted of waiting, and waiting, and waiting even MORE, until 8:40 came around, and I called the Zone Leaders out of confusion, to which they told us only 3 people in our zone had gotten called by President saying they were leaving, and I wasn't one of them. Soooo, out of all the good byes I gave, I guess I stand corrected in my likely premature preparations to leave, and will be staying another transfer in Cova Figueira. By  the time this transfer finishes, I'll have done a full 6 months here. I'll also be staying with Elder Mason for a third transfer, making him my longest served with companion. However, this next transfer looks to bring a year mark hit, Christmas, and New Years, so it should be fun.

Sorry for the lame update for the week, hopefully this next one is a bit more happening! Love y'all! 
Elder Massey

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