Week Five

We just got back from Campinas, super fun. Crazy story: Last night my companion woke me up at 2:30am and said "our roommate Elder Silva just fell off his bed (top bunk of the bunkbed) and split his head open, I think he has a concussion and we need to go find a security guard." I was half asleep and I couldn't really take him seriously and I thought he was lying and told him to go back to bed. Well I got up, got dressed and wandered downstairs to find the security guard by the gate. He called Brother Hale and we went back up stairs to wait for him. Elder Hughes was in the bathroom taking care of Elder Silva. He had a gash in his forehead which had stopped bleeding but was really swollen. We gave him a blessing and Elder Hale took him to get help. I was so woken up by that, it took me over an hour to fall back asleep. But I made up for it on the bus ride over to Campinas. I feel bad because I was kind of laughing at the fact that he fell off his bed. I don't know why, but it was 2:30 in the morning and he is going to be ok I think.

Portuguese has been coming along really well. This was another week of only Portuguese within our district. Our goals are pretty ambitious. But Arnold Schwarzenegger once said: "If your goals don't scare you, then you don't have very good goals." Or maybe it was like you're not going to achieve anything. IDK you guys can look it up. But yeah I'm excited to go into the field this week. We leave Tuesday morning, I'm not sure what time yet. I do know that I will be taking a plane because that's what Elder Harden did. (missionary who served in St. George for 10 months who came with us to the MTC for a two week refresher. And he's going to Maceió. Super good missionary, I hope to be companions with him at some point). Anyways, I'm really excited to leave. I don't know all the things that I need to, but I want to leave anyways. Hopefully I can hit the ground running on Tuesday.

We got to watch a talk by Elder Nelson this week for devotional. It was a talk he gave to the Provo missionaries a week prior. He said that we as missionaries are living epistles, which I really liked. I thought about it. The purpose of epistles in the bible are to testify of Jesus Christ. And individually we can't physically testify that we have seen Christ perform miracles, or preach during his ministry, but we can testify of the ways that  Jesus Christ and the atonement have effected us. There is a video I really like called "A Expiacáo é a obra missionario".  In it Jeffry R Holland says "Missionary work is not easy because Salvation was not a cheap experience. Salvation was never easy... We are all standing shoulder to shoulder with the best life this world has ever seen. We have every reason to stand tall."

Eu sei que esta Igreja é o somente Igreja verdadeiro. Eu sei que ele vive. Eu sei que está obra Eu vou fazer é verdadeiro. Eu estou animado para servo os pessoas na Maceió. Jesus Cristo suffrio para nos, e por meio a Expiacáo de Jesus Cristo nos podemos ser limpido. Eu amo vocés.

Luke