This last week was one of those downers. It started out awesome when we went to Campo Grande for the Mission Tour with Pres. Mazzagardi (you can see his picture in the 2nd Quorum of the Seventy in the new Ensign). Wow! He is an amazing man. He had lots of good advice and counsel for us as missionaries. One thing that he said which we all thought was interesting is that we need to go and find people to teach close to the chapel and to go and teach the rich people in the city, because they will be the future leaders of the Church who know how to get things done and have the time to do it and have the Lord´s kingdom grow faster! Neat. He also talked about the importance of opening our mouths and talking with everyone. He spoke of one missionary that he met before he left for his mission in Japan. Pres. Mazzagardi gave him the advice to open his mouth and talk to everyone. He had a ridiculous goal to do 100 contacts during the day! And in the end, he had talked with, started teaching, or actually baptized HALF of the entire mission´s baptisms for the entire year. I´m being better about opening my mouth now and talking to everyone.
The sad part was that our baptism, Felipe, fell through. He is a member´s boyfriend and his baptism was marked for Sunday. We visited him or called him (while in Campo Grande) every day to help him out, but he was kind of lacking. We talked with him and he decided that he was good to be baptized. Then, Elder Santana came all the way here on Saturday to do his interview (a 2 hour bus ride) and Felipe was just running away from us for the whole time. He lied and said that he wouldn´t be able to come because he had to work (Saturday was a holiday by the way: Maracaju´s 87th Birthday) and then we went and talked to him at night and he said that he didn´t want to get baptized but he would go to Church. On Sunday, his girlfriend said that he didn´t come with her, so we called him and he said that they had fought (not true), so he stayed at home. Whatever Felipe. It must makes me sad that we spent so much time focused on him this week, when we could have been looking for other people to bring to Church. If people don´t want the blessings of the gospel, they normally let us know. But when people play these types of games, it just frustrates me. But that´s the mission. Patience is definately a virtue! This week will definately be better.
We did an activity night on Saturday, but it wasn´t the best idea because it was the 2nd to last day of the fair (ExpoMara!) and the city´s birthday. We had a total of 7 people there! But the cake was still good, and the members saw that we want to help out the branch and are starting to do visits and get things going.
Have a wonderful June week! Let me know what your plans are for the summer, fam! Get some sun.
Brazilian Fact: #1) Pancakes are still fun to eat even without syrup. (Not really a Brazilian fact, but whatever).
#2) Apparently when the city has it´s 87th birthday, it´s alright for a parade of honking cars and horses and fireworks to go through the town to wake everyone up at 6 in the morning.
-Elder Carpenter
Fotos: Elder Furtado and I with Presidente e Sister Mazzagardi. Our kitchen/front room/study. French fries! These are the burnt ones that I did. Elder Furtado made some more delicious ones after. Editor's note: Zach didn't send picture of Pres. Mazzagardi so maybe next week.
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