Week 7

olá!

 

Week 7 -- Companion: Elder Rindlisbacher

 

Here are answers to all of your questions! we have not sung the hymn yet, but i talked to the music lady so are now performing it during the tuesday night devotional! it sounds sooo cool! this last weeks theme was common household objects for our chhurch talks and i was assigned a love seat. i fit it into my talk perfectly, but was not called :( i am nervous for next week because we will probably have a really crazy topic. I'm glad that i am on the 9 week program here. the people who have been arriving here for the 6 week prgram are doing really well and learning fast. i know the lord will get them nice and prepared in 6 weeks, but i like having the extra time anyways just for practice and comfort. my departure date is the 27th. i am not sure if i can call from the airport, i will try to find out and there are two americans going with me, but i do not know about brazilians. Also because i only have two weeks left here, sometime you should start sending letters to my mission home instead of here. they will be forwarded on if they come after i leave, but just to be safe i guess. maybe in a couple days. and also can you change my address on the blog, my facebook, and the church bulletin so people get the new one: thanks!

 

Last tuesday was a great day. we had a big pizza party in our district because it was someones birthday and their mom ordered some pizzas through mr cheney´s! they were soooo good because they were actually like american pizza.

 

on thursday we had a really intense volleyball game that kept going on because nobody was winning by 2, but then i got a really good spike and ended the game :) it felt way good and everyone is getting really good. gym time is definitely my favorite time of the day and i dont think only an hour is enough time. later that night was kind of a rough night. i got a little discouraged because i was having some difficulties understanding portuguese. its really wierd because i can speak better than most of my class, but i dont understand it as well as others. it doesnt really make sense to me because usually you can understand more than you can speak, but mine is the other way around. hopefully that will change soon! i also made goals to be more positive so i could learn better and have a better time.

 

friday was way fun. i was alot happier and we did some fun things in class. in our afternoon class we did a fun question game where we had to respond only in portuguese (they were long responses) and they were nothing gospel related. i can teach lessons really well, but i have no idea how to talk to people really outside of church stuff, so it was good practice. Later that night we also learned a fun portuguese childrens game that was really fun to play and stress relieving.

 

We had TRC again this week like always and it was one of our better lessons. we taught my teachers husband who doesnt speak any english, so that was way fun. they threw us a curveball because they give you the situation of the investigator so you can prepare for it before hand, but this time the people who we thought were there had moved, so we were just teaching on the fly. instead of preparing somebody for baptism, we taught about the restoration and book of mormon. He couldnt read but was really interested so we said that we would come back and read to him and his family because he was really interested. we also invited his family to church and he said no at first, but after asking some questions we figured out the only reason why he said no was because he didnt have clothes for church. We said that we could get some clothes for him and his family for church and he got really excited. during our feedback he said that he could feel the spirit and that we taught everything really well. Also that night during my personal study and ran into a verse that i liked and it was in 3rd nephi 18:20 and after high-lighting it i noticed something that was way cool. the scripture was really similar to james 1:5 like joseph smith read and prayed in the year 1820 to know which church was right and the reference to this one was 18:20! i thought it was cool :)

 

Church was great yet again. sunday is by far one of the best days of the week. i love it so much! sacrament meeting was really good and during priesthood i bore my testimony about the holy ghost. we had no interviews that day so we were able to go back to our room and sleep.

 

Monday was both a great and sad day. We taught good lessons and were having a good time and had a great time at night. It was sad because it was our brazilian roommates last night with us :( we took lots of pictures and joked around a bunch but it was sad knowing that they were leaving soon. i also finished the book of mormon that night! i just had a little bit left so i stayed up a bit late and finished it. it felt so good to finish it and i know that that book is true. it took me two weeks longer than my goal, but i was super busy for two weeks and didnt really read much so im not too upset. now i will start over but reading back and forth between the portuguese and english! fun fun...

 

Today has been awesome! we go to the temple every P-day, but today the São Paulo temple is closed becuase they are cleaning it, WE WENT TO THE CAMPINAS TEMPLE! it was soooo cool! it is so so pretty outside and is in alot prettier area of brazil. there were dense jungle areas on both sides of the road and it was such a pretty drive. on the way there we passed huge colonies of favelas (colorful houses that are all stacked on top of each other). It looked like something out of a movie and the trees were all so pretty. you should look up pictures of a favela. they are in the poorer areas.

 

i hope everyone is doing great at home, school, and work and i miss you all! i have been keeping you in my prayers and you are all so great! i really wish we are allowed to send photos so i could send some to you!

 

I LOVE YOU ALL!

 

Com muito amor: sue irmão, filho, e amigo,

Elder Derek Lambert