Monday, March 5th 2012

Oi Família!

This week was pretty crazy! We had a crazy time with the transfers and I also thought that I could have been transfered from my caling as Assistant. Well, first of all, I have already served in this area for six months which is usually the maximum amount of time that a missionary stays in each area, and the other thing was that there are few other missionaries who I thought would do a great job as assistant. Neither of my hypothesis were right. I stayed here as Assistant and looks like I will finish the mission here in this area. It´ll be nine months in the same ward! It´s a great thing that I love this place!

We have a couple here in the ward that we are going to help get married this month! They are so great and they call us their two new sons! The lady´s name is Raquel and she suffered a serious burn accident about three months ago. She was extremely depressed one day and was drinking heavily when she grabbed a cigarette lighter and set her clothes on fire with alcohol all over her. We had baptized her neighbor the week before and so we found out about her and went to visit her during her recovery from her third-degree burns. She and her husband told us that they knew that this was the Church they needed to be baptized in because of the way we treated them. I am so happy to be able to help them. And they make amazing food! :)

I had a very special experience yesterday at the bus station. I was walking down a big busy hallway to grab another bus to go to the mission office when I passed someone who seemed really familiar to me. I was on the phone talking with another Elder when something in my mind told me to stop and turn around. I hung up on the other missionary and turned on a dime! Just as I turned, the other guy turned around as well. It was Mardson! My first baptism on the mission! I ran towards him and gave him a huge hug! He was the very first person I ever taught on the mission and we got to be really close friends in my first area that I worked in. Unfortunately, he moved away without being able to get a hold of his address or anything and I lost contact with him completely. The strangest thing is that where he lives now and where I met up with him yesterday is completely out of the way for him to travel. So it really was luck that we ran into each other again. He is studying and working every Sunday and he lost a lot of contact with the members of the Church so he fell inactive during this time, but he is still the happy guy that I met when I was knocking on doors for the first time here in Brazil. I know that he gained a good testimony of the Church when he was baptized, so I know that one day he will come back! It was a very good experience for me.

Other than this, I had a smooth week. I am learning patience and love every day. After almost two years of service, you hear just about every excuse in the book that people give for not wanting to follow the Gospel. So I have to learn how to work harder each day so that I can find the people who are actually searching for the truth. If I want spiritual experiences, I´m not going to sit on my butt and wait for them to fall in front of me. I am going to work harder so that I can find them faster. That is what I have learned on the mission. If I want good experiences, I need to work for them! Love you all!

Elder Clark