Letter dated 30 Sept. 2013--sore arms and Christ's invitation to Come unto Him

Oi minha Família e meus amigos!

 

This past week has been a pretty normal week with really not all that much going on. We taught lessons, fought killer lions (or flies), and did a lot of walking. First of all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY EVALY! Just so you know I did not forget that the 27th was your birthday but I did forget to mention that in my last email. I hope that it was a good day and know that I was thinking about you that day!

 

So, something new that we are doing is that we are weight lifting in the mornings. Could you actually see me doing that? We have a less active man that we are trying to active and Elder Paredes discovered that he has a bench and weights. He asked if we could work out with him in the morning and he just said that we could come in every day and work out however long we want. So my arms are killing me from doing it every day.

 

Ok, so this last week we were supposed to Zone Conference but because of things going on on one of the other islands, President moved it till next week so I won't get letters until the end of this week. But here, let me explain the scripture game that I was talking about last week. So, imagine all the missionaries on Fogo and Brave sitting together. President sits on the stand with Preach My Gospel and the Scriptures open. The assistants walk around and chose a missionary at random. This missionary walks up to the front and is given a lesson number and a lesson point number, (Example: 2 lesson, 4 point, which is Our Life on Earth). This missionary must say the title within 5 seconds and then say a scripture from memory about this topic. If you get anything wrong, even one scripture, you hear about it. Many missionaries have fear over it but I am feeling pretty good. I have almost all the points and scriptures down so I should be good. And, of course, there is no guarantee that I will be picked. I will have to tell you how it goes next week. Elder Paredes and I practice every day.

 

Another baptism and another flood--wow, getting skilled at this job, using 3 mops now!

 

One last thing before I close my email. We had a lesson this week with 2 of our investigators, and as we were going into the lesson, we had absolutely no idea what we were going to teach. They both have baptismal dates but one has a boyfriend in America that doesn't want her to be baptized and the other one just doesn't have the motivation. The point was, we had taught them everything and we were stuck on what to teach. But once we started the lesson, I thought about 2 Nephi 26:25 (Behold, doth he (Jesus Christ) cry unto any, saying: Depart from me? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; but he saith come unto me all ye ends of the earth, buy milk and honey, without money and without price), where it talks about how Christ wants everyone to partake of his sacrífice and how he wants to help us in our lives. Elder Paredes was then prompted to share 1 Corinthinians 10:13, (There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it) Our message ended up being that in our lives we have a lot of difficulties  (with family, friends, work, school, etc.) but Christ is always there for us and he will always lift us from the depths of despair. Doesn't even matter what your religion is. He loves everyone. It was a great lesson for them and for me.

 

Well, I love you all and I wish you all health and success in everything you are doing! Hey, if you have a couple of minutes shoot me an email. I am curious to hear how all of you are doing! :)

 

Até aproxima semana, Tchão!

Elder Brent Dorff :)