Oh my heck, I can't even explain to you how happy I am. Yeah! I got an email from my last companion, Elder Cavalcante, and he sent me pictures of 5 more baptisms that he had in my last area, three of which were people that we worked with together. Super cool! My heart is super full and I can't even explain how happy I am. OH my GOODNESS!
Wow, so cool! I am super happy with everything that happened in that last area, and everything that is happening in this area as well.
So I'm still getting used to this area here. There is a lot of work to be done and everything is going to turn out great. I feel a lot like I did when I first came to Brazil, kind of unsure about the way things were gonna go down, but after getting a feel of things, miracles started to happened. I really feel like I was sent to Franca to get things rolling for a great work to happen, and God sent Élder Cavalcante with perfect timing so that everyone could get excited and ready to work. And now I'm in another area to help accelerate the work here.
In all honesty, up until this moment I was a little bit frustrated with the way things were going here, but now I'm seeing that the same thing happened when I first arrived in Franca; I was a little bit overwhelmed by the environment but when I got settled in and really focused on being obedient and organizing things, everything worked out. It gives me a lot of hope that the same things are going to happen here.
I've learned some good lessons this transfer from my current companion, one of which is communication. A lot of people have noticed that when I get offended or frustrated I'm not very good at expressing my feelings, and just kind of close up and wait to remove myself from the uncomfortable situation. But when you're on a mission, your entire life is kind of an uncomfortable situation, and when you are with some 24 hours a day, you have to learn how to communicate what you are feeling. We had a good long talk about communication last week, and this week I've been doing a lot better about expressing my feelings. I still like to be reserved about some things; I don't like to talk every second of the day saying everything that comes to mind.
Yesterday I was walking with my companion, and I was a little bit frustrated because I felt like we were wasting our time with some activities and that we weren't doing our very best to fulfill our purpose. He was a little sick this week, so I think that may have added to my frustration because we lost a lot of time, but also in general I felt like we weren't taking advantage of the greatest resource we have: time. I expressed myself a lot more openly this week, and even though he got a little bit irritated (he almost punched a druggy that came up and talked to us), it helped me to see what needs to be done to make a real difference here.
We found a super great family to teach that I have no doubt will be baptized soon. The family consists of three women, a mom and two daughters, and the three of them went to church this Sunday. They are really liking our message because it's clarifying a lot of life questions that they have. I love teaching the gospel!
Love you all so much.
Sincerely,
Jack
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