Week 12!

Hallo!!

This week started off with sickness. I'm not exactly sure what caused it, but Monday night was not pretty or fun. I'll spare the details, but I had some sort of virus and my body wouldn't let me put anything in it. So Sister Fernandes put me on this crazy diet for the next three days that actually worked! I had to eat like a bazzillion bananas and drink gatorade and I couldn't drink milk or eat meat. But it was super sad Tuesday because after the Zone Meeting there was a bunch of ice cream, but I couldn't eat any of it :( I was pretty weak until Friday, but we still worked around the chapel. I'm all better now thankfully!

There were some very spiritual experiences for me this week. We taught a lesson this week to 10 people at the same time and that was quite the experience. People here, for the most part, talk like crazy. Like it's super hard to get a word in with some of our investigators, so you can imagine how it was like with 10 people who didn't agree on much religiously. It was so amazing though because when we got to the story of Joseph Smith, it was really powerful. As soon as I began relating his story, it got dead silent and I felt the spirit so strongly! I testified more boldly than I think I ever have, and no one disputed that part of our message. I know Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and really did see God the Father and the Son. I am so grateful for Joseph Smith!

Yesterday I gave a talk in church so that was fun. I was nervous leading up to it, but actually giving the talk wasn't bad! I talked about member missionary work and how to share the gospel with your friends! It was really sad though because none of our investigators made it to church yesterday. For most of them was because of the time change. Unfortunately we weren't aware of the time change until it was too late to warn our investigators.

Oh transfers were yesterday! I am staying here with Elder Vieira and the other missionaries in our house are staying too. This is my companion's last transfer! I will be with him until he goes home. And I love all the missionaries in our house. The Zone Leaders and Elder Vieira are teaching me so much. One of the Zone Leaders, Elder Lima, just got done being an Assistant to the President and he is so powerful. And he knows English very well which is great. The only downside to having such good missionaries living with us is that our areas aren't divided and the members love them. We are getting better at gaining the confidence of the members though!

The one investigator we are focusing on who has the most potential right now is named Kiko. Kiko is super cool and is very receptive! The hard part is that he hasn't been to church yet, but we are going to make sure he gets to church these next 2 weeks! After these two weeks there's a District Conference instead of sacrament though, so he would have to wait to be baptized and confirmed on like the 14th of November. But hopefully we find more investigators this week to put on the same track as Kiko! Plus we are teaching a man named Newton who is working to get married on the 20th of November so he can be baptized after. I'm really learning to love these people. Kiko is going to be blessed so much by this gospel! He doesn't have a very exciting life and I think he's pretty sad most of the time, but I know this gospel is going to help him so much with that!!

To answer some questions from the fam-

Yes, everyone has an electric shower here. We had one in our old house, but we haven't installed it in this one yet because the water is actually a good temperature already haha! It is still hot, and still hasn't rained. Everyone says it's going to rain tomorrow though so I guess we will see!

The members always feed us lunch except on Pdays. Lunch always consists of beans and rice. And usually some type of meat and root. There are so many types of roots/potatoes here! I love their sweet potato. It looks nothing like what we call a sweet potato. And there's usually juice or guarana. Also, tomatoes and lettuce. And half the time with members they make us desert! This week I ate so many things made from mangos. There are mango trees everywhere here and I'm really loving this fruit. My favorite thing I ate this week was a brazillian truffle I bought that was a really good type of chocolate (brigadello I think it's called).

Our laundry situation is a little crazy. We have a washing machine, but with our new house there's not a place to hook it up right, so we have to use buckets to fill it during the cycles and have to kind of wash clothes by hand before sticking them in the washer. Because there's 4 of us, we can't all do laundry on the same day, so I wake up early Friday and do mine. There are no such things as dryers here, we have wires that we hang up our clothes on to dry.

To deal with the heat, we drink a lot of water and sweat a lot. I'm just kind of getting used to being hot and it's not a big deal anymore. We have fans for sleeping, and I haven't really used a blanket since São Paulo.

We get around by walking! I have yet to ride a bike, but we use the ônibus to get to central, and sometimes will use a members car to go teach someone. Most of the members don't have cars though, and even the ones that do don't like using them because gas costs so much here.

There are actually 12 missionaries in Montes Claros! It used to be 8, but the sisters arrived last week. It's us 4 from my house in the 3rd branch, and 4 missionaries in the other branches too. We are the only branch in our chapel, and the chapel downtown is where the other 2 branches congregate.

The language is still coming! I always feel like I'm not making any progress, but when I think about how much I know now compared to a few weeks ago, I realize that my tongue is truly being loosed.

I hope everyone is doing well! I'm sorry if my emails don't make much sense grammatically. I've figured out that there's no reason or time to plan out what I'm going to say beforehand, so that's why they aren't as nice! Hopefully they still make sense. Anyways, have a splendid week everyone! 

Love,

Elder Searle

weekly steps: 102593