So continuing in the spirit of
copying my good friend from the MTC, this song by Jake Bugg is the subject of
my email this week.
Why? Partially because I haven't
heard Jake Bugg in almost 4 and half months, but also because of a few words I
would like to apply here in my email. In each and every one of us there is the
capability to be your own worst enemy. And no one can feed this beast but us.
We put ourselves down, we are the one that criticize ourselves, who won't let
go of our mistakes. Now with the exception of those who are clinically ill, we
have the CHOICE to be happy or not.
So I have one word for you,
"LETITGO." My uplifting message for you all this week, as well as my
recommendation to listen to the song (2 minutes of your day well spent).
Querido Família e Amigos!
Como estão? To bem, obrigado.
This week. This week was a different
week. I hope I can improve my writing skills enough to convey to you all
without making this a missionary email that drags on and on!
The start was a lot different than
others. We had a Zone Conference! The first for me. We were combined with
another Zone of missionaries. (A Zone is a large portion of a mission, then the
zone is broken into districts, and the districts into areas. Areas have a
companionship of missionaries. Like me and my comp :) ) It was very cool. We
were fed very well, it was a typical Portuguese meal: Rice (of course), a
couple chunks of meat, fries, and some green stuff with vinegar, which isn't
terrible but I wouldn't deem "salad".
Let me tell you, the meal schedule
here is messing with me. They eat breakfast (I honestly don't know what, we
normally eat cereal) but then they have their largest meal of the day at lunchtime,
the size of dinner back in the states. Then they have what we would have as
dinner sometime between 7 and 9pm. Messing me up. Because as missionary, we
have to finish dinner before 6:30pm, but I am still full from lunch and then
I'm starving when we get home at night. The life of a missionary.
This is a picture of our zone
conference. That’s our Mission President and his wife in the center front. I'm
top right with my companion on the right of me. Sorry for lack of pictures but
I lost my camera cord. I'll start taking more in preparation for my new one to
show up!
I'm not sure if I've told you all how
much we walk. It's a lot. At times I wish we had a car. Yesterday for instance,
we walked all the way down the hill in the middle of our area (part on one side,
part on the hill, part on the other side) to an area called Chainça, just to
talk to ONE person. It took us a half an hour from our house to walk there. And
yep, you guessed, they weren't there haha. Then we had to walk back and then
back up the steep way to make it to an appointment with an investigator named
Mercedes.
So we haven't been teaching a heck
ton of people at the same time. Heck, we haven't been teach a heck ton. It's
hard to meet someone who will be interested enough to invite you in. At times
it’s frustrating when people say we can come back and repeatedly blow us off,
because a simple no thank you would suffice haha. But in the words of the
Portuguese, "Eh, é vida."
Mercedes is an interesting person, we
have talked to her quite a few times, and yet we still don't know her. The past
4 weeks my comp and I have talked to her in the door. She loves hearing what we
have to say, but she won't commit to sitting down with us to have a real
discussion. We're gonna try one more week with her.
We met a man named José (there are
about a billion) One day when we went to talk to him, his wife who doesn't like
us tried to scare us off, but we were loving and I honestly think the
conversation turned around her opinion of us a little. Because we're not here
to make people move religions. Do we hope that that is what people decide to
do? I would be a liar if I said no.
But as a missionary our purpose is to
be representatives of Christ. We are here to help these people, we, like a
doctor, find their pain and then we use the gospel of Jesus Christ to help heal
that pain.
We had a branch activity this week, a
family night. We have a spiritual thought and then we play games. It was a lot
of fun. Especially a game Elder Da Silva (that is my companion. We have a senior
couple of missionaries Elder and Sister Da Silva too) presented. A person
writes something down and then they say out loud the category of what it is.
Then they go around the circle and each person guesses one at a time, but the
person in the middle has a cup of water, and if the person guesses what they
wrote they throw the water at them! haha It was ingrasado because Sister Da
Silva kept getting water thrown at her!
I'm having fun out here. Working
hard, and like I said, trying to help people. I'll keep a better list of events
from the week that I want to include for next week. Tchao for now! (so corny)
Have a great week!
Elder Buchanan
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