It’s December Eve!
Well, this week was a little rougher than last week, but it was still good. I think what is true of life is true of missions, we don’t learn a whole lot from being happy and having everything come easy, learning is tough. Maria dos Anjos did not get baptized, despite us trying really really hard. I honestly have never worked so hard for someone in my mission. It was really frustrating actually, because I did everything I possible could and things just didn’t work out. The whole thing reminded me of mom talking to gretchin back in the day. Maria dos Anjos has a tendency to focus on the problems in her life, which makes it difficult. But today I had a really good study about all the times the Lord tells people to go back and try again. It happens a lot actually. So anyway, I’m learning to be patient and not define my success by outward results.
As far as outward results though, we’re teaching Quinta for serious again. She was the first person we met in Pontinha, and I’ve been having the feeling she’ll be the last person I baptize here. It just has a nice symmetry to it.
This week was rainy and cold, but today was a really nice day and we went and played volleyball, which was fun. Sounds like thanksgiving in California was nice. For thanksgiving we bought a barbeque chicked and made rice and potatoes, and it turned out really good, it was a lot better than last thanksgiving meal.
Anyhow, I’m rambling let me tell you some of the awesome things that happened this week:
Oh, so we hit a little obstacle with Jorge. When we went back for the second lesson he told us he was sorry but he couldn’t meet with us because the next day his house was getting destroyed. He lives on this street that they’re tearing down houses to make room for a highway or something like that, and we showed up that day and a little café near his house was destroyed, up the street they were in the process of destroying a house (which was really cool to watch.) So that was sort of disappointing. We’re hoping things settle down with him a little bit and we can teach him some more.
Woah, I just realized that this keyboard is exactly the same as the keyboard I had on my computer, except it’s written in Portuguese.
We’ve had some really nice lessons with Dona. She really likes the doctrine of the church and loves to learn about this, but it’s going to be hard for her to change in her life. But it’s really fun to teach her, our landlords are really cool people. I really need to take a picture with them one of these days (hopefully today)
Speaking of one of these days, next week is transfers, so next p-day we’ll probably find out where I’m spending Christmas. It’s pretty up in the air, I could easily stay or go. I would like to spend Christmas here, but i’ll accept what comes. I hit a year in Portugal this week, It has gone by really fast, and time keeps speeding up, but I’m working hard not to keep track of home much time is left.
It’s good that my last two letters were really enlightening; this one is feeling sort of uninspired. It’s interesting the way our life goes in cycles. I’m still enough of a math major to think about our personal progress over time as a function:
f(x) = x + sin x (throw that in a graphing calculator or ask somebody that remembers math)
We have highs and lows but in theory we gradually get better (you might throw a constant in front of sine if your ups and downs are a little dramatic). It seems like we should be able to just keep going up, grace for grace if you will, but it seems like more often it’s more wavey. So you might say I’m over there at 5.5π. I probably shouldn’t make metaphors with math, it really limits the number of people who will know what I’m talking about. Basically the point is, this week was rough, but that just means I’m progressing, and the next few weeks will be better. This week I’m working with the attitude that it’s my last, ironically I woke up with “party like it’s 1999” stuck in my head. Blast, well it would seem that the internet on this computer has collapsed on itself, so I’m going to save this on the handy dandy pen drive I’ve been meaning to send you guys forever and go send it later.
Have a great week everyone. Thanks for your support and love and presents. I exhort you to not procrastinate the day of your Christmas shopping until the end.
Abraços,
