This week we taught a 13 year old named Thaimires. Her mom is really nice but is pregnant and sleeps a lot so it´s been hard to get her involved in the lessons, but we will be persistent. We taught Thaimires the Restoration and she is super absorbant. I think it was the only time that I taught the Restoration(and I´ve taught that lesson a lot) that I really felt like my investigator understood like everything that we said. Sometimes you just connect with people and they really get it. Anyway, we began to teach the First Vision we were all tearing up because the Spirit hit us like a wall. Sister Salles was in the middle of the first vision (``I saw a pillar of light exactly...``) when our phone went off really loud because the other sisters were calling us. This goes on the list of 1st vision distractions. Thaimires really liked the message and we gave her a Book of Mormon. The next day, we saw her on the street at night and she ran up to us and told us that she read some of the Book of Mormon and she felt something really strong. She told us that she would go get it because she thought we were just letting her borrow it. We told her it was hers. She came to church with us yesterday, and she liked it but said it was way different from any other church she has been too. She goes to a church called ``Assemblia,`` where she said there is a lot of yelling and it´s only like an hour. Some of our other investigators have commented on that--kind of saying that our church isn´t as fun or interesting because they don´t get all ``riled up with the Spirit``(I can´t think of a direct translation but its like how you feel at an intense sporting event).
Also this week we had interviews with President Dalton. He gave a brief training before, and then the assitants gave a training again on the Plan of Salvation and the Laws and Ordinances lessons because we need to practice them a lot in order to really help people understand how families(for generations before and after them) can be together forever through temple ordinances. I really liked 2 stories that were shared that day.
1. Story about turkeys. There once was a turkey who told all his turkey friends that he knew how to fly. The turkeys didn´t believe him because they were fat and they thought it was impossible. However, one night they decided to trust their turkey friend and try to fly. It worked! They flew all through the night and visited a ton of cool places. When they landed in the morning, they talked about how incredible their experience had been as they walked home. President Dalton said, ``We do the same thing after really spiritual meetings/conferences. We fly and have incredible experiences, but we walk home. Why? We need to apply what we learn. Practice what we learn, so that feeling doesn´t go away.``
2. Story about President Packer. He was a mission president or a seventy--I think he was a 70. He held a conference with a mission, and the missionaries were really excited to hear from a 70. President Packer began to talk about how to shine shoes. The missionaries left confused. Then they had another conference with President Packer. They were really excited to hear from a 70 because this time he would teach them something great. He came and taught them again how to shine shoes. These missionaries were amazed. Why have we had 2 trainings with a 70 about the same thing? Then they had a 3rd conference with President Packer, who got up and said, ``Today we will learn how to shine our shoes.`` A missionary who was quite frustrated said, ``But we already learned that twice.`` President Packer said, ``Look at your shoes. I don´t think you understand how to shine your shoes.`` Our assistant said, ``Lots of times we hear the same things over and over and over again. Why? We must not be understanding it because we aren´t doing it. That´s why we have heard over and over and over again that we need to read our scriptures daily, say personal prayers daily, share the gospel, have family home evening, do family history work. We aren´t understanding because we aren´t doing it.`` That was pretty powerful for me.
Other than that, we stayed inside for like most of the week due to the world cup so I don´t have much more to say. Oh except one morning, Sister Stephens and I had like 2 hours before lunch to contact people together. We tried to teach soem people, but our Portuguese was really failing us. We invited a ton of people to church though! I´ve gotten pretty good at that. I think its funny whenever I teach/contact with her because our vocabularies are both really limited, but somehow we found like 7 new investigators so it was a testimony to me that the Lord works with the weak and simple!
Te amo!
Sister Sadie Bledsoe
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