2 macacos

This week had me in the first 6 days, not gonna lie. We knocked on soooo many doors, trying to find new people, but met a ridiculous amount of uninterested people. On top of that, there wasn't a lot of significant progression with our current investigators.

We finally caught a break sunday night. A stud recent return missionary named Bruno came with us to visit Flavia, Simone, and Luiza. The visit went AMAZING, here's what went down:

-Flavia finally agreed on a baptismal date! Her baptism will be March 7th.

-Simone is praying about baptism. She has been coming to church with Flavia and Luiza for about a month and wants to be baptized, but the situation is a little complicated. She's about to move back to her hometown, which doesn't have the church.

-Luiza (was an inactive member for about 7 years but started going to church a month ago) committed to serve a mission!

Today was the most unique Pday of my mission. We got special permission to do a hike with the young men during their stake campout! It was pretty dang fun and it brought me back to my days in young mens. I've gotten pretty tight with the youth here in Porto Nacional. AND I FINALLY SAW SOME MONKEYS on the hike. They were just two lil guys, but it made my day.

The stake wanted me to do the prayer in english for the lunch we had. It was humiliating. It was the first time I've prayed in English in like 8 months and it was in front of about 200 people. Most of the very short prayer was just a bunch of stuttering but at one point, I was definitely speaking some sort of Portuguese/English hybrid.

Carnaval (the Brazilian holiday where they pretty much rage face in the streets for a week straight) has begun, so that will slow down the work this week. We have to get back home before sunset this week. 

Well that's all I got for you people. Have a great week!

<3 Elder MacLay

"O João Paytão"

Whaddup whaddup whaddup its Elder MacLay

The week was good as always!

My new comp is a really serious guy, so people think our dynamic as a companionship is really funny because I'm pretty much the opposite of serious guy. But he's down to work, study, and be obedient, so we get along great. He's learning english and asks me a lot of questions about english stuff, so that makes for pretty good conversation and helps me with my portuguese.

In terms of work, things are going well. We did a lot of knocking doors to find some new people. We are bringing a heckload of people to church every week, thanks to the members here.

Cool story about Deusinha. She's progressing really well. Before a lesson, she was talking about how much she loves coffee and how she would never give it up. Well, we had planned to teach the word of wisdom to her that day. We went ahead and taught the word of wisdom anyway and it went SO well. She immediately committed to give up coffee. The amount of faith she has is so impressive. 

Also, when we invited her to read the book of mormon the first time (and offered to leave a book of mormon with her) she whipped out a super old book of mormon and was like "Oh I've already read some of it." And I was like "How did you get this book?" And she was like "I don't even know man." I'm still baffled.

Andreia and Alexandro have a date for their wedding! March 24th!! I am so dang stoked for them. There is gonna be a community wedding sort of thing, so a civil marriage will be free that day. The wedding will be the day after transfers, so I'm not completely sure that I'll be there.

My comp saved a little baby bird that fell out of it's nest. He had the nerve to take it into our apartment. He ended up putting it back in it's tree, but not before I took some really high quality National Geographic type of pics. We named the little guy "João Paytão"

Have a good week! Jesus loves you! And Heavenly Father too. And Elder MacLay, just not as much.

<3 Elder MacLay

Assunto

Transfers! I'll be staying here in Porto Nacional (THANK GOODNESS) but I'll be getting a new comp (Elder Calazans from Natal, Brazil).

Elder Calazans is a lucky guy because he'll be walking in on 5 free baptisms! Not to mention a dope teaching pool with a couple of other people who could possibly be baptized this transfer.

Andreia and Alexandro will get married! We are still planning things out, but they will get married in the next few weeks and want to get baptized right after (along with 2 of their 4 kids).

They are really recognizing God's hand in their lives. They have said how their move to Porto has changed their lives so much for the better, thanks to a couple of dumb 19 year old missionaries who came knocking on their door (aka me and Elder Almeida lol)

Andreia, Alexandro, and their kids think my missionary tan lines are the funniest things ever. Priscila starting drawing on my upper arm because it's "branco como papel." She ended up giving me some pretty sick tattoos of a friendly shark, a snake dragon, a heart that says 'Mãe,' my parents names, and a bunch of other great stuff. 

Also Deusina will be baptized on February 22nd! She was a reference from a recent convert and she is super prepared. 

We had 9 investigators at church this week. The attendance of members was really low, though. There were more investigators than members until some people showed up late after sacrament.

We've been giving an insane amount of priesthood blessings so that's been really awesome. 

I have some funny little stories because the brakes on my bike aren't working. 

We went down this MASSIVE hill and the hill just did not stop. For about 30 seconds straight, I was zooming down the hill at about the speed of light (going way further than our destination because I couldn't stop). Well at the bottom of this long road/hill was a giant pond. I don't know how I did it but I made a super sharp turn and missed the pond by inches. I've gotten pretty good at riding bikes. To give you an reference point, I'm somewhere in between Lance Armstrong, Rod Kimble, and Ricky Bobby. I can even ride without the handlebars, but I try to refrain because I don't want to look too gangster.

A funny thing happened with transfers. My district leader screwed up and told me that I would be going to the mission office. I was absolutely ticked for about 10 minutes before he cleared it up that I would actually stay. Good thing he figured that out before I took the 14 hour bus ride to Brasilia.

Welp... See ya later

<3Elder MacLay

"A dead largatixa in my shower"

I don't have a lot of exciting stuff to share this week but here goes nothin!

Overall, the work slowed down a little bit this week. A lot of our investigators weren't doing so well with appointments and commitments this week but I'm still really hopeful about our teaching pool. 

Andreia/Alexandro and their 4 kids (the extremely elect fam that I've been talking about) are progressing great. Andreia found a job this week thanks to some friends she made at church. Also, we gave them two extra mattresses that were laying around in our house. The kids were sleeping on the floor, but now they have beds! In other news, Alexandro said he is 'addicted' to reading the Book of Mormon. This is like music to a missionary's ears. 

The problem with them is that they are still not married on paper. They have 4 kids and have lived together for 12 years, but can't afford to get married (apparently marriage is really expensive in Brazil, even if it's just a civil marriage without reception and all that fancy stuff).

I just hope I can be here when they get married, and hopefully be there for their baptisms afterward!

I was forced to eat some of the weirdest and grossest fruits ever. 

The majority of active members in the branch here were gone all week. They went to the Campinas temple for the week. Campinas is the closest temple and it's a 36 hour bus ride. It's really cool to see the sacrifices the members made to go for the week. My fam's new house back home is pretty much in the temple's 'front yard' so this was a good reminder to not take that for granted.

I listened to the Thomas S. Monson talk 'Finding Joy in the Journey' this week. A GOAT talk. I love Monson's talks and the stories and quotes he uses. I want to share a quote from the talk:

"If you pile up enough 'tomorrows,' you'll find that you've collected a lot of empty yesterdays" 

This quote really hit me. Throughout my life I've always had an attitude like this:

 "I'll be happier when summer break comes" 

"I'll be happy when basketball season starts"

"I'll be happy when I get transferred to a new area or get a new companion"

But in reality, when the time arrives, I don't experience the satisfaction I desire, and I continue to invest my hope on some future event that I think will make me "happy." Obviously, I'm not the only person that does this.

I think a lot of people have this problem of daydreaming and focusing on the future instead of just enjoying the many blessings they have in their everyday life. Having a happy life is simply a choice we have to make.

Have a good week!

<3 Elder MacLay