Elder Sweet: "I need scuba gear! "

Hey there!

A Brazilian BBQ

This week has been pretty awesome, so much happened! I don´t have time to say everything though, so I´ll try to cut to the good stuff. First, I don´t think I´ve taken the time yet to tell you all about the heat. Brazil´s pretty hot in general, but I´m in a place that´s hotter than normal I think. Yesterday when we were walking to church it was already over 100 degrees at 8:30am, and a couple days ago it was 118 degrees! I´ve never been in heat like this before, and it´s super humid too. If there was any more water in this air I´d need scuba gear just to get around town. Missionaries aren´t aloud to swim though, so if it does get any more humid they´ll probably just have to close the mission! Like Grandpa Boe said though, everyone comes outside when its hot because no one here has AC. That makes it much easier to contact people. They´re also really nice about giving us water too, so that helps :)

Elder M. and I.

I had a pretty interesting conversation with some people yesterday, too. Elder M. and I were talking to some ladies who where sitting out on their porch. It was a bit wierd because every couple of seconds one of them would yell at her son who was playing across the street. That aside though, it started like a normal conversation. We told them that we were missionaries and that we wanted to invite them to the inauguration of the new chapel her in Itumbiara this Saturday. Now, some days I´m really on top of Portuguese. I understand a lot of what other people say, and they understand me. Other days though, like this one, I´m totally lost. They asked us where we were from, and Elder Manrique said that he´s from Peru and that I´m from the US. Once they heard that I was from the US, they said (All of this was in Portuguese, btw. I´ll do my best to translate it to English) "Oh, do they kill people up there?" I was pretty confused, so I said "What?" They said "The terrorists, do they kill people in the US?" I told them that it´s really uncommon. After that they asked "How are you liking Brazil?" I completely misunderstood them, so I respended "The terrorists?" They all started laughing and tried again. "How are you liking Brazil?" Once again I misheard them, so I said "Yes, we live in Itumbiara." My companion looked at me and said "They asked if you´re liking Brazil." I was pretty surprised because what I heard sounded nothing like that! We all got a pretty good laugh out of that.

Okay, now the best of the best of the week! We were towards the end of a pretty hard day. It was hot, and we were all pretty exhausted. We all met up at the new church building to rehydrate and figure out what we were going to do next. Some of the missionaries decided that they wanted to go and get some Açaí (I´ll attach a picture to show you what it looks like. We don´t have this in the states, but it´s just about the most delicious thing I´ve ever had).

Açaí tigelas are amazing,

they basically just mash up açaí berries,

and put banans, granola,

and condensed milk on the top.

It´s absolutely delicious!

If you ever go to Brazil, try it out!

Two other Elders had an appointment to go to instead. They asked me "Elder Sweet, what do you want to do?" and I replied "I want to work." So, Elder M. S., and I skipped Açaí to teach one more lesson. The family had been contacted by some of the other missionaries earlier that week (they gave them an invitation to the inaugaration of the new chapel), so we were going to teach them the first lesson. When we first sat down with them, they had an attitude like "Oh cool, more Jesus boys!" They were very welcoming. The wife told us as we started that when she saw the picture of the new chapel she felt a peace that she hadn´t felt before too. We started teaching the lesson, and they pretty quickly realized that we weren´t normal pastors. Elder M. taught about the Ministry of Jesus Christ, I taught about the Apostasy, and Elder S. taught about the Restoration. I love watching people´s attitudes change once we share the message of the restoration with them. We could see the change in their faces as they realized that if what we were teaching was true, it was important. Elder S. read James 1:5 with them, the scripture that Joseph Smith read when he was trying to figure out for himself which church was God´s. He taught them about Joseph Smith´s first vision, how God and Jesus Christ appeared to him to answer his prayer, and called him to be a prophet just like those in biblical times. After all of this, the Dad asked his daughter to get his bible for him. I thought "Great, he wants to bible bash. I thought this lesson was going pretty well." I misjudged him though. I didn´t catch everything he said, but with my companions help I did catch this much "You´re doing for me what no other pastor has ever done. You´re not just preaching to me, you´re teaching me." We invited them to pray about the message that we had shared, and to ask God if it was true. The wife said "With the peace that I felt when I saw the picture of the chapel, and the way that I´ve felt while you have been here teaching me, I already know that this is the church of Christ. I have no doubts." The rest of the family concurred, but we still comitted them to pray about it. As we were getting up to leave the Father stopped us and said "Thank you so much for working for Jesus. You were here today to rescue our 4 souls. Thank you." Man, I didn´t know that people like that even existed! It was the coolest lesson I´ve ever taught! That´s what makes the mission worth it. It´s so hard and exhausting, but every now and then you have moments like this, and everything else just kind of melts away.