15 July 2013   Lot's of Gaúchos

Hello Family and Friends,

 This week was rather normal so there is not too much to report. The highlight of the week was that we invited one of our investigators, G, to be baptized along with 2 of her kids. She accepted the invitation but is still waiting for an answer from God to be fully committed. She has been a member of the Igreja Universal- Evangelical Church- for 14 years now so she is still a little hesitant in accepting everything. She did mention that whenever we leave her house it feels like something good is missing, aka the Spirit. Also, she has some form of cancer and the other day her pastor tried to "cure" her from the disease, and she told us for the first time she felt the biggest impression to leave the church. We will see what happens this week with her if she received an answer or not. 

We will be having a big activity in the ward this week, Dessert Night. I was an activity that I thought up and with the help of the other missionaries we will give a message of the Atonement of Christ. We have put everything together and have invited everyone in the ward. We are hoping that they will bring friends and family to the event so that we can increase the number of people that we are teaching. This activity will give us a good idea of how willing the ward is to help the missionary work, and according to the results we will be able to plan bigger and better activities for the future.

The zone leaders and some other missionaries are coming to our area tomorrow to help us out in our area. We are working hard, but our numbers are pretty low still so they will contact a bunch of people for us to teach, I think. I don't really know why they are so worried about us, but I accept the help. I won't lie it has been a great challenge opening up this area especially since NOTHING was left for us to work with from the previous elders. But we have 2 special families we are working with for now and my plan for this week is to find a whole lot more. We were forced to slow down the work this week because of a rain storm that lasted a couple days. It was not fun working at all. Not one person allowed us to go into their house. As much as people tell you that it is easier to enter into houses during the rain it is false, it seems almost worse. But everything is good and I'm not worried, I know things will happen in the Lord's time.

So I have not mentioned much about the area. First, we live in an apartment: 1 study room, kitchen, washer room, bathroom, and room to sleep. It is really nice after a good wash and I am enjoying it. Our city is divided into two parts, I have the North section, and Elder Beary, the senior companion, has the South section. Our section is rather poor and more rural than the south section which has the city center and suburbs. What really stinks is that the majority of the members live in the South section and thus the majority of references are for their area. So basically Elder Machado and I are on our own.

We are living in city with a heavy Gaúcho influence. There is a lot of people on horses and there is a lot of agriculture around here. The food is a lot better than my last area. They spice things up with salads, and noodles etc.. We still eat a ton of meat which is cool. The members are really cool and humble people. They seem to have a desire to work with the missionaries which is a bonus. All in all I like the area, we just need to keep on working hard and I think things will turn around. The people here are not really receptive of the gospel, but hey there has to got be someone that wants to hear the good word we just have to find them.

That is all for now,

Love Elder Miller