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How is everyone doing? By the way, I have a not-so-good keyboard today, it tends to drop some letters (especially g). So, don´t blame my bad spelling on me. Okay, now that that´s out of the way, let´s get down to business here!
Not a ton happened this week, so I´ll share a cool experience or two and then just find something to rant about. Here we go! First, we met a really awesome guy named E. We were knocking doors in a neighborhood that is quite a ways away from our house, and I saw him sitting on a chair outside his house. I went up to talk to him really quick, and before I had gotten more than a couple words out of my mouth he told me to sit down in the chair that was next to him. We talked for a bit and then marked a return appointment for the next day. We returned the next day, just as he was pulling out of his driveway to leave. I waved at him as he drove by us, and then we continued to our backup plan. A little while later a car pulled over next to us with the window down, and there was E.! He said "I saw you guys as I left my house, and remembered that I had marked an appointment with you. So, I went to pick up my wife and, knowing you couldn´t get too far because you were on foot, we drove around the neighborhood looking for you. We´re heading back to the house now, so you guys can come on over and share your message!" We returned to his house and had a very nice first lesson with them. They had lots of questions, and we didn´t have a lot of time, but we did what we could. I´ll keep you guys up to date!
We´re also finally teaching M. again. His life has been pretty complicated lately, but it´s started to settle down just enough so that we can catch him at home. He´s a great writer too, and likes to write short proses that he reads for us. One was about the creation and the fall and was absolutely gorgeous! He read us another prose that he wrote a couple of days ago, and a couple things that he said stuck with me. First - "If you ask God for something and he doesn´t give it to you, it´s because that thing wasn´t what you needed." Second - "When you are passin through a real trial and ask yourself "Where is God," remember that during a test the professor always remains quiet." I did my best to translate, but it still sounds better in Portuguese. It is very true though, at many points in our lives we have to pass through tests and trials seemingly on our own, and often ask ourselves "Where is God?" We need to remember that he is helping us to grow, to become, and that no one has more invested in us and no one has a greater desire to see us succeed than he does. He is always at our side, always doing his very best to help us. We need to learn to be just as driven to see ourselves succeed as he is to see us succeed.
To wrap up here, a quick word on portuguese! My portuguese is actually really coming along. I´m thinking in Portuguese, talking in Portuguese, praying in Portuguese, and living in Portuguese. I feel quite comfortable with the language at this point, but am still studying it as hard as I can. There are actually far more words that we have in English and don´t have in Portuguese, and vice-versa, than I had expected. The two words from English that I miss the most are "too" and "even." We have too in terms of in adition to, the word is também. But, we don´t have the word too in the sense of too much, too many, or too full. For example, if someone´s putting cereal in your bowl and you say "Too much! Too much!" in Portuguese you´d actually say "A lot! A lot!" It´s a bit different. The word even, in the sense of adding emphasis, we also don´t have. For example "he didn´t even brush his teeth," or "Is he even going to make the call?" We can still say the same thin in Portuguese, but there´s a number of words that we use depending on the situation. Just having one is kind of nice, it makes things easy for my simple mind!
Anyhow, I hope that all of you have an awesome week! Keep me up to date on what´s going on and what´s important to you all, and always remember that Christ lives!
Love,
Elder Sweet
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