Ola!!
É um prazer a novamente ter o oportunidade para falar com vocês.
The
title is both a quote from one of the greatest movies of all time (Toy
Story 2) and is completely true. Wow! What a week it has been!
Monday (January 21st, 2019)
Another
P-Day! If you havent caught onto it by now, ever single Monday is
P-Day. I know there are some of you that havent caught on yet so thats
why I keep announcing it every Monday. I cut my hair today and had a
very interesting experience. We walk in and start to get our hair cut
and this guy starts asking us which church we are from. We said, The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and he says, Oh the Mormons
and we said, no The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and it
went on like that for a while. But then he asked us if we are Christian
and we said, yes, we believe in Jesus Christ and in Heavenly Father.
Then he didnt say anything after that. He turned on a speaker and I
thought that he was going to put on some nice music but he puts on a
video of a Jewish pastor preaching. The entire time that this pastor is
preaching, he is roasting Christians and explaining why they are so awful and how many Jews they killed and all that. It was a really fun
experience to sit in a chair, listen to a Jewish guy talk about how
Christians are awful with a ex Jehovahs Witness behind me with an
unnaturally sharp pair of scissors.
Tuesday (January 22nd, 2019)
Today
we had a great experience. We are trying to help a young man named
Johnny return to church and help him go on a mission too. When we were
at his house he had a friend over (his name is Fiber) and he said that
it would be a great opportunity to teach him about the Gospel! Wow, this
kid is already a missionary. It was amazing to see someone without a
nametag bring the light of the Gospel to others. I hope that even if
Fiber isnt baptised, he will always be able to look at Johnny as an
example.
Wednesday (January 23rd, 2019)
Today
Elder Blanco came to our area on a split and we had a nice debate with
some people from the Evangelical Church. They started off telling us how
different our beliefs were from theirs and so I asked a very daring
probably dangerous question. What beliefs do you have that are different
from ours. So they started. We believe in the Holy Ghost. Us too! We
believe that Jesus Christ is perfect and is separate from God. Us too!
We believe that Christ died for us! Us too! And it went on and on and on
and basically, we have a lot of the same beliefs that they do. We
walked away and they even said to us, Wow, I didnt know that our
religions are so different. I learned a lesson that we need to simply
explain to people what we believe and they will see that we are normal
people that just want to be happy and try to be better every day.
I also had one of the craziest experiences of my mission today. We were walking to an appointment that we had and some lady stopped us in the road and asked us to follow her. Normally, no 99% of the time I would never follow some lady who says, Follow Me! But for some reason (The Holy Ghost although I didnt recognize it at the time) we followed her. We walked up to this house and we say a woman at the door, she threw us the keys so that we could enter and while we were walking up to the gate we hear a THUMP. She had fallen cold on the floor and was having a convulsion. We opened the gate as fast as we could and ran inside where she was twitching on the ground. We gave her a blessing and immediately after I said Amen, she started to breathe normally again. She woke up, and we had her sit on the couch to rest a little. 3 minutes later, she started having another convulsion, only this one was worse. She literally started to try and choke herself. Even with all of my strength and all of the strength of Elder Blanco, we barely stopped her from choking herself to death. Then she woke up and we talked with her and waited with her until her husband came home to help her.
When she woke up from the second one, we told her what happened and she said, Wow, its lucky that you guys were here, I have never tried to choke myself before. No, it was not luck. I do not believe in randomness or coincidences. I firmly believe that God sent us to her house at that exact moment to help her. It was such a testimony builder for me of two things. One, God knows us and loves us and is always watching out for us. He is always sending people to help us with our needs. And second, we always need to be ready. We cannot think, oh I will repent tomorrow or I will be better tomorrow because we never know when the Lord will need us to bless or save his children. I am so grateful for this amazing experience.
Thursday (January 24th, 2019)
Today
I went on a split with Elder Rico and nothing crazy happened. It was
really nice for a change. I was great to see Johnny at the ward activity
today though. It shows that he is really trying to change and do what
he needs to to repent and change his life for the better.
Friday (January 25th, 2019)
Today
was a really hard day. We had a ton of plans, a ton of people that said
that we could visit them and literally no one was at home today. So we
spent most of the day walking around trying to contact and talk with as
many people as possible. Kind of discouraging but not every day will be
perfect. So we just have to keep working and trust that The Lord is in
charge of this work, which He is.
Saturday (January 26th, 2019)
Today
was kinda rough too. We had 24 people today that set up an appointment
with us because of all of the contacts that we did throughout the week
but only one of them worked out. But look on the bright side, we got
some good exercise in walking a lot and we bought Fanta as a reward for
our hard work.
Sunday (January 27th, 2019)
This
week, we didnt have anybody come to church. That is always disappointing. We went to every house before church to wake people up and
to bring them to church with us and all of them were sleeping or
working or tending children or drunk or something like that. It was a
really humbling experience. But this next week will be really important
because it will determine if we see results in the coming weeks or not. I
know that the harder we work, the more miracles that we will see. Trust
in The Lord with all thine heart.
Random Thoughts:
- A member of our ward stopped us in the center of the city and told us all about the examine that he had just had at the doctor for his toenails. Thank you for that wonderful piece of information.
- Yes, that kids name is really Fiber.
- There is another kid that we met whose name is Axel.
- A three year old named Gilherme gave me a bottle full of pebbles as a present and I happily accepted it.
- I ate cow tongue.
- Maybe it was sheep tongue. I dont know to be honest, I didnt ask.
I
hope that all of you had an amazing week and that you are all doing
well. Just know that I love you all and that all of you are amazing
examples to me!!
Love,
Elder Allen
