Hello Family and Friends,
Right now I'm writing you guys from the comfort of the WIZARD office building here in Butiá, free of charge! Elder Weber and I were doing street contacting when an older man came up to me and begun to speak English. He explained that he was the boss at WIZARD and that we could use their Internet, restrooms, and water whenever we want. WIZARD is one of the big language learning programs here in Brazil, founded and run by a former Mormon missionary of course. The boss explained that the owner of WIZARD encourages Mormon missionaries to teach language classes here in the office, also he said that after summer break they would begin to classes again. Who knows maybe I will be teaching English classes here in a couple months, it is a good way to make contacts!
I live with the Dias family. They are converts to the church. They have a son that is currently serving in El Salvador, a Northern state in Brazil. They are really friendly, but I live in an attachment to the main house so I don't see them that often. It is really nice, tile floor, new appliances, clean shower etc..
Sunday I had my first sacrament meeting as part of a Branch. It was awesome, the place was packed and we had 9 investigators there. The Branch President said he had not seen the meeting house that full in awhile. I think everyone in the Branch showed up yesterday, all the benches were full! I bore my testimony about missionary work and how all members are missionaries.
We had some cool experiences street contacting this week. First, Elder Weber made a contact with a guy that looks identical to Snoop Dogg the rapper. He even had chains and rings the whole bit. We decided to go to his house during the week and he was their with his family, "wife", 2 kids, and a baby that looked like a day and a half old. The house was trashed and falling apart with cigarette buds, and beer cans strewn out throughout the house. To our amazement it was the best lesson I have had as a missionary. Snoop Dogg answered every question profoundly and exactly right! We have taught rich people, educated people, religious people, but never had any of them understood our message as well as this man did. Pretty incredible since he has been living on the street since age 9! He isn't married and has some bad habits, but I really hope we can change that around. He really likes having us around.
The second cool experience was when we were making contacts in the main street in Butiá. Elder Weber was waiting for me to make a contact with anyone but I wasn't really in the "talking to random strangers mood." I passed about three groups of people in a row while Elder Weber was kept on saying, "Talk to them, talk to them." Eventually I saw a Mother and Daughter out in the distance and made up my mind that I would talk to them. I did just that and it felt like any normal contact. We put down a time and date, and yesterday we went to their home. We entered their house and met 20 year old Lucas, the son of the Mother that we contacted. We begun teaching the first lesson to the family when all of a sudden Lucas mentioned that he is a member of the church. We were blown away. Turns out he was baptized when he was 15 but when the missionaries that baptized him left the area he quickly fell away from the church. Even more to our surprise he said that he had recently been wanting to return back to church! We had a really good lesson with the whole family and at the end Lucas prayed and gave thanks that the missionaries had found him once again. He remembered a lot from the missionaries had previously taught him. Him and his family are really cool people, I hope we can get him reactivated and baptize the rest of the family.
I get letters and packages about every three weeks now. Whenever our zone leaders travel up to Porto Alegre they pick everything up for the zone.
Super Bowl sounded like a good one, I only have to miss one more!
Butiá is awesome, I'm liking the more countryside feel more than the busy city feel.
Elder Weber and I are working a ton, life is good.
Much Love,
Elder Miller
Right now I'm writing you guys from the comfort of the WIZARD office building here in Butiá, free of charge! Elder Weber and I were doing street contacting when an older man came up to me and begun to speak English. He explained that he was the boss at WIZARD and that we could use their Internet, restrooms, and water whenever we want. WIZARD is one of the big language learning programs here in Brazil, founded and run by a former Mormon missionary of course. The boss explained that the owner of WIZARD encourages Mormon missionaries to teach language classes here in the office, also he said that after summer break they would begin to classes again. Who knows maybe I will be teaching English classes here in a couple months, it is a good way to make contacts!
I live with the Dias family. They are converts to the church. They have a son that is currently serving in El Salvador, a Northern state in Brazil. They are really friendly, but I live in an attachment to the main house so I don't see them that often. It is really nice, tile floor, new appliances, clean shower etc..
Sunday I had my first sacrament meeting as part of a Branch. It was awesome, the place was packed and we had 9 investigators there. The Branch President said he had not seen the meeting house that full in awhile. I think everyone in the Branch showed up yesterday, all the benches were full! I bore my testimony about missionary work and how all members are missionaries.
We had some cool experiences street contacting this week. First, Elder Weber made a contact with a guy that looks identical to Snoop Dogg the rapper. He even had chains and rings the whole bit. We decided to go to his house during the week and he was their with his family, "wife", 2 kids, and a baby that looked like a day and a half old. The house was trashed and falling apart with cigarette buds, and beer cans strewn out throughout the house. To our amazement it was the best lesson I have had as a missionary. Snoop Dogg answered every question profoundly and exactly right! We have taught rich people, educated people, religious people, but never had any of them understood our message as well as this man did. Pretty incredible since he has been living on the street since age 9! He isn't married and has some bad habits, but I really hope we can change that around. He really likes having us around.
The second cool experience was when we were making contacts in the main street in Butiá. Elder Weber was waiting for me to make a contact with anyone but I wasn't really in the "talking to random strangers mood." I passed about three groups of people in a row while Elder Weber was kept on saying, "Talk to them, talk to them." Eventually I saw a Mother and Daughter out in the distance and made up my mind that I would talk to them. I did just that and it felt like any normal contact. We put down a time and date, and yesterday we went to their home. We entered their house and met 20 year old Lucas, the son of the Mother that we contacted. We begun teaching the first lesson to the family when all of a sudden Lucas mentioned that he is a member of the church. We were blown away. Turns out he was baptized when he was 15 but when the missionaries that baptized him left the area he quickly fell away from the church. Even more to our surprise he said that he had recently been wanting to return back to church! We had a really good lesson with the whole family and at the end Lucas prayed and gave thanks that the missionaries had found him once again. He remembered a lot from the missionaries had previously taught him. Him and his family are really cool people, I hope we can get him reactivated and baptize the rest of the family.
I get letters and packages about every three weeks now. Whenever our zone leaders travel up to Porto Alegre they pick everything up for the zone.
Super Bowl sounded like a good one, I only have to miss one more!
Butiá is awesome, I'm liking the more countryside feel more than the busy city feel.
Elder Weber and I are working a ton, life is good.
Much Love,
Elder Miller
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