July 14, 2014

I read the stories of the missions of Ammon and his brothers this week (Alma 17 - 27). And I stopped and thought a bit about Alma 20:29. Ammon goes to rescue his brothers. Their missions, until that point, had been really hard- they were rejected and thrown into prison. They probably asked Ammon how his mission had been, and maybe were surprised to hear that he'd already baptized thousands. This made me think about how all of us have different missions. Sometimes we're in a prison of problems and someone else is baptizing thousands (or, in other words, having lots of success). But, like Ammon's brothers, we don't need to complain that they're succeeding when we're not. But we should rejoice in their happiness and continue to search for ours.

Anyway, this week started off with a Brazil game in the World Cup, so Elder R. Santos and had to stay at home. So I taught him to make cookies and we invented some checker games. He's going home tomorrow because he's finished his two years of service. So it was good to have a bit of fun. 

haircut time

cookies with Elder R. Santos

inventing different versions of checkers

Anyway, I went to wash my clothes that day and the machine wasn't filling up with water! Instead of trying to fix the problem, I decided to fill up the machine myself. So, since we don't have a pitcher or anything, I grabbed our blender and started filling it up at the sink and dumping it in the washer. After wasting around 5 minutes, I finally decided that it was going to take forever and that maybe it'd be better to try to fix the machine. Well I found that the hose was bent and water couldn't pass. So in about 3 seconds I fixed the problem. Once again, I am reminded of a talk by Elder Uchtdorf when he told us we need to focus on the big picture. Sometimes we get caught up trying to fix a problem with our own actions when the problem can fix itself if we look around.

So on the 10th, I had my one year birthday on the mission. We didn't have any flour to make cake, so I settled with a happy birthday chimarrão! We sang the birthday song and I blew out the candle. But blowing on the chimarrão made it go flying! (remember, it's like chopped up grass) So we had to fix up the quia before we could enjoy it.

my happy birthday chimarrão

my happy birthday chimarrão

This week, Patrick was baptized. He's the cousin of Alberson and Carlos, who were baptized in past weeks. They've been visiting him with us and he accepted to be baptized too. The other day, Alberson's mom asked us to help her be baptized. Yay! The gospel is blessing their family! Elder R Santos and I donated a shirt and tie for both Carlos and Alberson and it was fun to have everyone in shirt and tie on Sunday.

Well, that was my week, it was a great one! Elder R. Santos will go to Porto Alegre tomorrow, him to catch his plane to São Paulo, and me to pick up my new greenie :) I'm excited for another great transfer!

Elder Jasperson

I made this new wall decoration. Hung one way, it says Brasil...turn it upside down, it says Texas!