PORTO NACIONAL 2020

First week in my new area was a great one!

We are opening the area and the elders before us didn't leave us a whole lot to do, so we have been doing a bunch of finding. We knocked a lot of doors this week. The people are really receptive here, so we already found some solid people to teach. We also experienced some rejection- funny rejections and not-as-enjoyable-rejections. 

We already got a baptismal date marked! Irma Mariah really liked us and had us come over to teach her grandson, João Elias. He came to church and accepted a baptismal date for January 18th! He's a really good kid. 

I left Cristalina at about noon on monday and arrived in Porto Nacional at about noon on tuesday. I took three different buses for a total of 17 hours (along with some waiting at bus stops). We arrived in Porto absolutely EXHAUSTED. That night was New Year's Eve. We had dinner with the branch president and his family to celebrate. We got home and I was so tired that I fell asleep at about 9:30. But, I was woken up by an insane amount of fireworks at midnight. I woke up freaking out because I was so out of it and the fireworks were so loud lol. Brazilians and fireworks are a pretty wild combination. 

I don't have a whole lot to report this week. We are in the early/finding stages with all of our investigators, so I don't have a lot of progress to report.

We had a family night with the branch President Almeida and his family. They are some of the coolest people I've met on the mission. 

We had a really interesting message by President. He talked about a man named Saulo, who was an alcoholic. The man drank all week, but frequented a church every Sunday. President said that he was internally judging Saulo for his decisions, but a friend corrected his judgements. The friend said, "Sick people go to the hospital; sinners go to church. We are all sinners, so we should all go to church." 

A lot of people go inactive in the church (or don't go to church at all) because they have feelings of unworthiness and shame. These feelings of unworthiness and shame can't come from anywhere but Satan. Satan wants us to think we are not good enough to go to church and not good enough to repent. but this is SO backwards. It can't be further from the truth. Jesus suffered and died for everyone; everyone is sufficient to receive His peace and atoning power.

Also, there are two different types of sinners: repentant sinners and non-repentant sinners. We are all sinners, but we can all be repenters as well.

Love you all and I hope you have a great week. 

Enjoy these pics. One of the pics is from the President Nelson pic in August. You can see your boy Elder MacLay on the very right, by the door. You can see your boy President Nelson in the front and center.

<3 Elder MacLay