Well, this week was really good as well. Lots of work, more rain, its all just flying by, really, this transfer. Next P-Day I could be in a different area and with a different companion! Yes, transfers are ending a week early this time around!!! Every year we have two transfers with only five weeks and President Batt chose this one. So, yeah, suspense!!
We had interviews with President Batt this week, and once again, it was very awesome to talk with him. He told me that he really trusts me as a missionary and he knows I have the potential to be a fantastic missionary. He also said I am very self-critical, and that I need to be more positive and confident about myself. Once again, more motivation! I love those interviews, always gives me a burst of missionary energy.
Let’s see, I made seven months on the mission this last week, feels pretty crazy that I’m getting so old here. I’ve been living in Maracanau since December!! It feels so normal to walk around on the streets here, I feel so comfortable and used to this place.
I was able to get those songs off my birthday CDs and put them on my iPod at the mission office and man, those songs are awesome! You guys did a great job and put a little bit of everything on there! Some Jack Johnson-esque like stuff, We All Live in A Yellow Submarine, hah, that cool Indie stuff I like and some techno-ish kinda music that is awesome. That really made the week, I loved it, loved it! Hope you can get music soon too, Connor, definitely upgraded my iPod, haha.
After my interview with President I have drastically changed how I am studying and I am loving it. What I was doing was dividing my hour of personal study in twenty minutes of the Book of Mormon, twenty minutes of the Bible, and twenty minutes of Preach My Gospel, all in Portuguese, but let me tell you, twenty minutes reading anything in Portuguese will only get you so far. I was lucky to get a chapter or two done and I wasn’t absorbing much spiritual information. President Batt said that I should start basing my study time around Preach My Gospel, that I should read slowly, look up all the scriptures, and invest time in pondering and writing down everything I feel by the Spirit. It totally has amplified my study time, and I’m not even drowsy during the morning like I usually am. Was really awesome how my study time changed this week.
We have a baptism this Saturday, probably. A good spiritual series of events with our investigator Angelica, I want to relate it on video though. Good things are happening though. General Conference is coming up!! Yeah! I can’t wait to watch it with all of you guys, and I’ve heard there is a chance that the American missionaries in our district will get to watch it in English!
Hey Connor! Glad to hear about Sabino. Man, if you can help the head of a family get a testimony and be baptized, it’s likely that the rest will follow suit. Getting a new family into the Church is a big deal, so congratulations on finding and teaching him and keep praying for him! Sucks to hear about Elder Silva acting like that. So you’re pretty much being the Senior Companion this transfer, huh? That’s awesome! At least you are getting a lot of practice in teaching and in speaking Portuguese, that’s going to help out a lot. Hope things will improve, but who knows, maybe the Lord is preparing you to move up next transfer. I know that many times with all of my companions, it hasn’t been easy for them to let the American teach much. I always have to push my comp to let me teach, because, I think with all of them so far, they’ve always been directing the lessons, they want it their way and I’m just there to learn. I agree that I don’t know how to teach extremely well or speak Portuguese completely fluent, and that there is tons I can learn from their example, but I’ve been agitated for a long time that the Brazilian companion wants to hog most of the teaching. So, who knows, this could be a blessing for ya that you aren’t realizing, to get all that experience. Great stuff with the reading of the Book of Mormon completely out loud in Portuguese. I’ve been doing the same, but my study time kind of follows a different plan, and while I’m always reading in Portuguese now, I think its going to be a while before I can say I finished the Book of Mormon in Portuguese. Ah well, I feel very pleased with how I am using my study time, so it’s all good. You’ve been taking hot showers the whole freaking last five months? Argh!! Yeah, but I did have an awesome surprise birthday party, that was pretty sweet, hehe. If I become senior companion next transfer, which everyone says will happen but which I really don’t think will, I think I am going to take it kind of slow at first, work a lot with my companion as equals in the process. I want to do things a little differently but it’s not going to be a revolution or anything on our first few days. I think the biggest thing is that we are just going to work as hard as we possibly can. I think in a few more transfers, when I’ve got the hang of things, I’ll start to try out some more radical ideas, like Dad’s idea of passing out flyers for a weekly group lesson and other things.
I love everyone one of you so much! Mom, Dad, Lynsey, Kaitlin, Grandma, Aunt Kauren, thanks for sending me e-mails! Have a fantastic week!
Love,
Elder Brendon Carpenter
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