Hola, minha familia!
This week was really tiring! Not going to lie! Almost none of our investigators were progressing, so we literally dropped almost all of our investigators, so this week we're going to be finding new people to teach. The Lord is preparing the people in this area, and we just need to go find them.
We do have one investigator who is progressing and super awesome! Her name is Vera Lucia, and she's an older lady, very sweet, who truly has a desire to serve the Lord. She's reading the book of Mormon, praying, and truly willing to do what the Lord requires of her. She has a lot of back pain, so it's kind of hard for her to get around. But, we went with a member to pick her up for church yesterday, and she was waiting in her house all dressed up for church. She's so stinkin' adorable! And she absolutely loved church! The ward was so welcoming to her, and she absolutely loved it! She's already accepted baptism, we just need to set a date with her.
2 funny stories for y'all :)
1. "Voce vai jantar conosco?"
- So I still don't speak Portuguese. I really can understand almost everything, and I can say what I want to, but sometimes I still get a little bit mixed up. Especially at night at the end of the day when I'm tired. Anyways, we went to go see an investigator at 8 at night before starting to head home. Our investigator wasn't there, but his family was there making dinner (his family likes us, but wants nothing to do with the church). When we arrived, I thought that his brother asked if we had walked a lot that day. I wasn't paying much attention, and didn't fully understand what he said, but we had walked a lot, so I responded yes. My companion started to help make the dinner, and I got really confused, and annoyed because we had no reason to stay there, but my companion was helping make dinner so we couldn't leave. So we waited until the dinner was done, and neither of us was hungry, so we got a little tiny plate, ate as fast as we could and then left. After we left, I was annoyed because we had wasted so much time. Sister A. Silva could see that I was annoyed and asked why I had accepted to eat dinner. And I said I hadn't, but it turns out that the question that I hadn't fully understood, but responded yes to, was "are you going to eat dinner with us". And so it was that Sister Pennington didn't speak Portuguese and ate dinner with the Jehovah's Witnesses that want nothing to do with the church :) We laughed for the next two days about it :)
2. "Voce pode tocar o piano?"
In the October 2012 conference, Elder Nelson challenged the members to ask the missionaries for help with whatever they needed. Two weeks ago, one of the members, Tayla, accepted this challenge, and asked for help with the choir because she need more women to sing for the devotional/ conference that happened yesterday. No problem. Of course we can help sing. We sang I need thee every hour, and another Brazilian song that I'd ever heard. But, it wasn't too hard. It worked out. Yesterday, an hour before the devotional, Tayla came to me frantically telling me that the person who was going to play the piano bailed and she needed someone to play for the devotional. I need thee every hour I can play with no problem, so I agreed. But she also wanted piano for the other piece. So I played a hymn that I heard for the first time last week and had never played in my life in front of 200 people. But, there was literally nobody else to do it. It wasn't horrible, but, yeah... I think "it wasn't horrible" sums it up. I don't know if y'all are familiar with the Spongebob episode when Squidward makes a band to play in the bubble bowl, and when they start out practicing they break the windows of the building they're practicing in. It was kind of like that, except we weren't practicing :) I think Tayla owes us about 200 referrals now, all families with parents legally married without word of wisdom problems who have been looking for the church for 20 years. We're going to get on that :)
Anyways, hope y'all had a wonderful week! Just remember, the sky is blue, and the church is true!
Sister Pennington
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