Família!!
Sounds like the weeks just get better and better there. Lots of stuff happening. Wilson I hope you are feeling better... a lot better. That hike sounded great but I can't believe you only got one fish.... a little disappointing. I thought I taught you guys better.
Yeah so I´ll have a year in 2 days....... that is COMPLETELY UNREAL!!! I cannot believe that it has already been a year. When I think back to when I was home it seems like 3 months ago but when I think back to getting trained, it seems like an eternity ago. But it mainly just feels like it went super super super super fast. I don't have the package but that is alright, no big deal.
So what is with this investigator eating dinner at the house?!?! If somebody did that here I think I would grow wings and fly away while playing a harp. You guys are taking your duty to share the gospel by the horns. Parabéns!! And Jefferson left 3 times with the missionaries this week! That is pretty cool. Keep it up. I wish I would have done that more. Dad, you rock. That is so great that you just stripped down and gave away all of your stuff for the comfort of others. That is a great Christ like example........I remember what it was like to be cold..... those were the days......hey Benson, give a big wet kiss to Chris for me when they arrive. He´ll love it.
So where do we even begin on the week.... let´s start at the beginning. So this week was awesome!!!!!! Best week I´ve had in a while. Nothing extra ordinary happened, just your average week as a missionary. It was a compilation of a lot of things. One thing happened on Tuesday, me and Elder Volk decided to go tracting up in a richer bairoo called Núcleo 9. I hate doing contacts, street or door. I´m just not good at it and never know what to say. So on Monday night and Tuesday morning I was just praying for the courage to be able to do contacts. Well the contacts came around and I loved it! We were going for almost 1.5 hours! We didn´t get in to teach anybody but we found two promising families! Usually I dread it but that time it was fun. It is because we had a plan. If they wanted to hear us but didn´t have time then we were going to give them 2 choices of when we could come back. Then we would get their number and tell them we would call and confirm.
Another little thing is the ward. I stinking love ala Êxodo!!!! I love the leadership and the youth and everybody! And I´m to the point where I´m comfortable with the members so now I can brincar com eles. Especially Y*. At the church on Tuesday and Friday they play futebol and dominos (I don´t want to play any of your grannie games alright!) So we go there when we don´t have comprimissos and get references. This Saturday they had the festa julinha which is a tradition festival here. It is like a cowboy/hillbilly party. They dance and there is always a ton of food and everybody dresses up like hillbillies. So they danced the quardilha which is the brasilian form of square dancing. So during this week they had rehearsals at the church. Just being with the members makes me happy.
Another thing that made the week great was my attitude. Instead of wishing to be somewhere else, I was content in being where I am, even happy to be here. I remember one night as we were getting a ride home from the church I just couldn´t stop smiling. I am a missionary, is there anything more happy than that! It was just a great feeling. (this isn´t that organized because I forgot my paper where I wrote what happened during the week) So I was just really happy this week! All week!! Except for one tiny little problem that I will address hereafter....... dun dun dun...
So like I said we had a massive party at the church on Saturday night. The youth did a country dance and the primary also did a dance. Then the whole ward did the quardilha... square dance but brasilian style. It was so much fun and there were a ton of less actives there. We also met a lot of non members... só que they don´t live in our area :( but we will pass the reference.
I forgot the best part of the night. Right before the party we had a baptism. She is the 12 year old daughter of Ka*.
The baptism was good. Our YM presidency was there and they did a musical number. I´ve seen 2 on the mission. It was a great baptismo and she is already friends with all the youth and she danced at the party!
Last night we had a little fireside with an ex mission president. He used to be the stake president here. His topic was preparing for a mission. It was like a question and answer thing so anybody could ask a question and he would answer. One of the questions was obviously "what is the best way to prepáre for a mission?" He shared a quote from Elder Bednar that says the best way to prepare to go on a mission is to become a missionary. To read what a missionary reads, to think like a missionary thinks and to pray like a missionary prays. After this he called me and Elder Volk up. He didn´t give us a heads up about this. He said that in order for members to think and pray like missionaries they need to know what missionaries pray and think about. So he had Elder Volk tell what he thinks about all day and then had me give an experience on prayer.
It was on the spot and my heart was beating so fast. I shared about the fast that me and my district did in cidade do leste to find new investigators and how we found like 7 people that week, how all got baptized. I told them it is good to pray for yourself because we have to help other people but that it is also import to pray for others. I thought it was pretty good. My heart was racing but it was awesome!
So ... now for the thing that has been bugging me..... so as you know I have been suffering from ingrown toe nails, so I have had a super bad one for about 3 weeks, we are talking (the squeamish should skip this part) gushing out puss and blood. And it kills when you touch it. There was no way that I was ever going to be able to get that thing out of there so this morning.... we went to the hospital to get it taken out. We had a member take us. We sat there and had to wait about an hour. Then they took me back to another little waiting room. There I was able to talk to leticia, a 22 year old girl that I gave a Book of Mormon too. I just explained to her a little about it then she said that I gave her curiosity to read it so I just gave her the Book of Mormon that I had with me. I told her to start with the intro because it explains better about the book of mormon.
Then I went in with the doc. It was a little tiny room. A little bigger than our pantry if you took all the shelfs out. They had a gurney there ("I´m on a gurney") and had me lay on it. It was just a nurse and a doc. I had my foot hanging off the end of it over a garbage can.... this is no American hospital. Then they just did it. He numbed up my toe which did not feel the greatest. Then he grabbed the ingrown toenail and said "do you feel that?" I felt nothing. Then he took some scissor type things and dug in and chopped off the ingrown part. No pain. It was great! Then he prescribed some drugs (because it is infected) and off I went! 5 mins top. He spoke a little english too. The worst part is this... I have to stay in the house for a week.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
It can´t be! If this would have happened to me at the beginning of the mission and I could have stayed in home for a week I would have been perfectly fine with that. But now when I´m almost at my prime..... ahhhh, it just is a bummer. Honestly there is a little part of me saying "yes I get a break!" But most of me is just suffering. I love this work and I want to work everyday. After the experience of tracting on Tuesday my fear of talking to people has really gone down. What is the worst they are going to say.. no? (people here don´t slam doors on us or yell at us, they just say they are catholics and say bye, in a semi nice way) so it is kinda a bummer but I´m glad that the pain is gone. I´m still numb from the operation. We are at the lan house right next to our house. I´m using a cain to walk around.
So that was like the week in a nut shell. I´ll have a lot of down time this week so I'll probably wright some letters of the stuff that I forgot. Have a great week and know that I love you guys so much!
Elder Ostler
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