Mission Slideshow

Monday, December 3, 2012

Week #86 - * insert Peanuts Christmas theme music here.*

Boom!

Wow! I feel really good. First, let me say that we finally went out and played a mission approved version of soccer. Basically a non contact way to play and it only lets you have 2 people per team but still, WE PLAYED! Oh man, I was needing that. I absolutely love playing soccer and I will definitely play after the mission.

IT'S DECEMBER AGAIN!!!!! What the heck, I remember very clearly writing to you last year in December and now one year has passed. Incredible! Wow, that was just crazy. So much has happened. I also very distinctly thinking to myself, "Wow, the next December is going to take forever to get here!" HAHAHA I was so wrong. It is pretty fantastic to be a missionary and I love it.

We had a our zone meeting this week. I do not how it works in the rest of Brazil or the world, but Mission Manaus has been doing something new. We have our zone conferences once every 3 months, but every month we have a zone meeting as well, with trainings given by the zone leaders. I think it is something very new, but I really do enjoy these meetings because we can help the entire zone at once. We have sister missionaries in our zone, and we never can do divisions with them, so the only way we get to pass along info to them is through these meetings. Anyway I enjoyed it this week. My companion made cookies for everyone and they were really darn good. I was impressed.

Also, as we were walking home on night a car swerved and tried to hit me. Very cool. I jumped out of the way but it was funny to see the look of the members faces that were with us. They could not believe it! hahaha. Anyways, I am good.

I have a few pictures I will try to send today of my eating fish. I love fish and here they have a lot of it. So enjoy the photos. But seriously, I really will miss the fish here. I have grown to love it!!! Oh man, I do like fish! I took a picture with a chicken too.

So we did a service project this week. Elder Doratiotto likes to work a lot so he goes after service projects. This week was "taking out the jungle" as they say in Portuguese. Really, that just means cleaning the yard. But in Brazil, no one has weedwackers or lawnmowers. They have machetes and hoes. So I grabbed a machete (facão) and I, for the first time in my life, mowed the lawn with a knife. It was super tall grass, but non the less it was very tiring, and my arm was in pain after-wards. New experiences, right? After-wards, it started to rain so we played that monopoly card game with the family there. I won twice!!! That was miracle in itself.

I was privileged this week to do more baptismal interviews and I was quite impressed with one young man. I had met him 2 weeks earlier on the street when I was doing interviews for some other people. We stopped and told him to stop drinking coffee. Well, he told me how from that day forward, he stopped and he felt like he should do everything that he could to be baptized! Incredible! Well, I do love interviews.

Something, however, happened this week that I did not enjoy. For the first time in my mission, our baptism changed her mind 2 minutes before the baptism!!! I was already dressed in white. She had come to church. Vitoria is her name. Well, we gave her a ride to church this week, and she came and was super integrated with all the girls. She had a good time. Yet right in front of the water she said "no, I do not want to do this right now." Wow, talk about harsh. I was super sad. Dressed in white, waiting on the waters edge. I felt like I was about to get married and was left at the altar! HARSH. Well, she calmed down and said she will be baptized next week. So, all's well that ends well.

Yea, I am a big fan of Christmas. So, this is what YOU will do for ME this Christmas. You will read the bible, Luke to be exact. You will read Christ's birth, and then you will share it with someone. You will post it on Facebook, or talk to someone on the park bench, or share with EVERYONE why we put trees in our houses and lights outside. This is what I want from you all for Christmas!!

I love my Saviour, and I love this time of year to give it all back to him.

Eu vos amo,
Elder Asa Laws

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