It was an okay week, I wouldn't say amazing, but still good. We had a very adventure-filled weekend, and I'll be talking about that in a sec.
First off, that sucks the Caps lost..., I'm glad Harper is still on fire! That Frontier Justice store looks perfect. I definitely agree with Joe's statement.
So, first off, I won free shoes this week! We were walking down the street and I saw a man who fixes shoes. I stopped to talk to him to see if he could trade out the souls of my shoes with new ones. He told me he could and asked us to stop by the next day. When we got there the next day, he asked what my shoe size was. I told him that my size is a 39 or 40 (brazilian system). He looked at me and said, "watch my stuff, I'll be right back." He leaves the store, goes to his house, and comes back with a pair of shoes. He looks at me and says, "Here, try these on." The shoes fit, he then looked at me and said, "They're yours. God bless you." It was awesome! He just gave them to me, no questions asked. I couldn't thank him enough and it was a huge blessing for me. We ran into him again yesterday, and he said he'll go to my English class on Saturday. I'm pretty sure we'll get the chance to teach him and help him enter into the waters of baptism =)
For the week (monday through thursday) that was about it. However, the adventures had only just begun. We went to a conference with a member of the Seventy on Friday morning. It was great! He taught us so well and really showed us that we are in this cause on the same level of importance. That might sound weird, but he just showed us how we are all equally yoked in the work of the Lord. It was great =) All that he taught was confirmed by the Holy Ghost and I felt as though I had already been prepared to receive it all. It was wonderful. I really liked one of the things he said to us about the difference between knowledge and works. He asked us what was necessary to have the Holy Ghost in our lives. We all gave responses such as testimony, fasting, obedience, prayer, study, etc. The list was quite lengthy and as he looked over the items listed he said, "Good, you know what they are. But are you living them?" It was a very thought provoking question. He continued, "we will never be saved for our knowledge. Knowledge will not gain salvation. This life isn't a game of theory. We have to have WORKs with our knowledge." I thought a lot about that. How many of us already know what is right, and how many of us aren't living what we know? The rest of the conference was just as good, but I just wanted to share that part.
I met a guy from Ireland this week. We were walking down the street after lunch on Friday, and I saw a guy walking down the street towards us, I looked at him and just knew he wasn't Brazilian. He looked at me with the same recognition. I called him over to us and started talking to him. I asked where he was from and he said Ireland, that he used to be an Elder, and is just passing through Brazil. I asked if he had ever been to the US, but he hadn't. We didn't talk long, but it was really weird to talk to someone in English and Portuguese, but with two different English accents haha.
I also got searched by the police on Friday night. We were on the bus leaving a baptismal interview, when the bus just stopped in the middle of the road. It was already almost 9:30and we couldn't really see anything. Suddenly, the bus was filled with cops and they asked (nicely) that all men get off the bus. We got off and had to get up against the bus with our legs spread apart and hands on the bus. One of the cops saw us and exclaimed, "what? Mormons here?" haha. They patted everyone down, but when they got to us, the guy patted my left side and then my right side, and said, "you can go." It pays to be a missionary =) They didn't even search our bags. However, they did catch a guy who had drugs, so it's good that they did the search.
Saturday, Elder Ribeiro and I reached a milestone. He reached 86 days in his mission and I reached 86 days until the end of mine haha. We laughed pretty hard at that. I can still remember it happening with my own trainer almost 2 years ago. Speaking of Elder Ribeiro, he and I are going to stay together for one more transfer =) I didn't get transferred, and neither did he. We're excited to keep working together and to baptize more people!
That's about it for the week. It was slow, but adventure filled at the end! Hope that this week is the same for all of you (or just the adventure part, not so much the slow part).
Love you and miss you!
Elder Sanderson
One new pic he sent on Mothers Day of him holding a baby sloth!
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