Every week is another week. That's the biggest truth I know.
Which doesn't really make sense, but it also kind of does. Every week I spend
here has to be up on the next level. Every week something bigger happens, like
we start to teach more lessons or we go out in the streets and hand out Book of
Mormons.
Firstly, last P-day, our district ate out. We went to this
thing called chihasco- it's a meat buffet restaurant. It was great! I ate quite
a bit. Afterwards, when we had gym time, we kept blaming our terrible
volleyball skills on chihasco.
The biggest thing we did this week was we went out to the
streets. We were planning on going to the Polista, this huge grand business
street in central São Paulo, but we didn't get the money for the bus. Instead
we walked for 40 minutes to Casa Verde. It's basically a giant mall but not
really. It's a long street with a million different businesses along it, and a
ton of people. We stopped people and talked to them and gave them Book of
Mormons and more. It was really fun.
Last week when some other English-speakers did this, they
had a funny experience: Elder Wild was talking to a lady, and was reaching into
his bag to pull out a Book of Mormon for her. As soon as he pulled it out, a
man stole it from his hands and ran off. The thief was probably expecting to
get something like a watch or a box of chocolates, but instead, he got the most
valuable book on earth. So yay for him!
Anyway, knowing me, I had a blast talking to random people.
But it still was hard because we had to speak in Portuguese, the street was
noisy, and the people spoke really fast and mumbled. Despite this, however, we
were successful.
The first lady we stopped was walking along with a little
girl. We told her we´re missionaries and told her we had a gift that would help
her life. She looked away, and when she looked back she was crying. She said
she had a lot of problems and she hopped that this could be the answer. We bore
our testimonies of the truth of the book and left her. Sadly, she didn't give
us an address or phone number (but then again, she was probably a little
cautious of giving two random men in the middle of a city her address or phone
number).
From there, I said hi to like a million people (actually, I
said Oi or Ola). I got ignored a lot, but that was okay because it was fun. We
next talked to a lady who had a 10 year old daughter and 3 month old son. She
was trying to ignore me but her baby starting looking at me and I started
making faces, and it was all downhill from there. Since we weren’t having
success stopping people in the streets, we went over to a bus stop. The people
there were waiting for busses; they couldn't walk away from us. After we talked
with some people there, we went back to the streets.
One older gentleman grabbed my arm and wouldn't let go,
while he repeatedly said "Eu conhece sua Igreja" (which means I know
your church) really mystically. He didn't want to hear our message. Another man
told us he couldn't listen to our message because he couldn't read. We talked
to a teenage boy standing outside a store. He told us he was a Jehovah's
Witness. We were still talking to him when his dad came out. He confirmed that
they were Jehovah’s Witnesses and left.
It's sad because we know that those people need the church,
but they don´t. I know that someday, however, they'll get the chance to really
hear and accept our message. All we can do is offer them opportunities.
This week we got both of our investigators committed to
baptism. It was really cool. We were teaching Carla the Plan of Salvation, and
the spirit was really strong, and so I just asked and she said yes.
So looking back on this week, what have I learned?
- I learned that there's this cool red and green fruit that has really hard seeds that tastes pretty good.
- I learned that if you want to feel angels frolic on your tongue all you need to do is mix tangerine and passion fruit juice.
- I learned that sometimes one Portuguese word means like 5 English ones. (For example, "afastarei-te" means "I will turn away from you")
- I learned that I don't have to be perfect with the gospel or with Portuguese to be able to share my beliefs with others.
I hope everyone is having a great time in the US. I love
hearing from you.
Tschau,
Elder Jasperson
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