Ola! E Tudo bem!
This week was probably the most insane week so far. Every
day was so busy and crazy weird things happened every day! We blamed it on the
full moon....
Monday we found out that one of our long time friends who
has been coming to church for the past couple months was never baptized! Her
name is Ester and she's married to one of our recent converts. She doesn't
speak Portuguese very well but she speaks Hindi, Norwegian, English, and a
couple others. We taught her the lessons and she was baptized on Sunday!! Woot!
It really cooled off this week and we've started wearing
jackets at night.
Also Sister Williams and I got to use our medical knowledge
this week when we saw an elderly man fall outside our Church. We helped call an
ambulance and get him to the hospital. I don't know what happened to him
though...
Miracle at Church! It's very hard to have people attend
church but we had 3 of our investigators at church this week! I was looking
around and counting and was dumbfounded.
We
have 4 missionaries for one branch... which is crazy!! There's about 40-ish
members that come regularly but the branch member list is much much more. We
spend a looooot of time visiting less actives. The young people are pretty
involved with us and we almost always teach in Portuguese. Though I am very
good at accidentally contacting people who only speak English!! For those who
speak English too we still teach in Portuguese. There is one girl we teach who
talks to us in English and we respond in Portuguese... my brain hurts after
those lessons.
I
love the language!! Portuguese is so fun for me. My zone leader said I speak
Portuguese at a 4 or 5 month level right now. My trainer has been here for 8
months! I still make a lot of mistakes but I really try to listen and ask
questions to the members a lot.
This week I really learned a lot about patience and that
some things come in the timing of the Lord. Heavenly Father always answers
prayers but it might not be in the way you want, when you want it, or the
answer you want. I was reading in D and C 121, where Joseph Smith is pleading
for God to help the saints. In verse one he says; "O God, where art
thou?" It's such a desperate, heartbroken plea that I think many of us
have.
The answer given to him is found in verses 7 through
9.
7 My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;
8 And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes.
Have patience! If things are hard, just wait a bit. It will
get better. And if things are great... wait a bit. Things change :)
I love you all and I have never been so happy. I hope all of
you turn towards Christ in your times of struggle.
With love,
Sister Ellsworth
Portuguese sunset
Old Barreiro!
Sergio, Ester, Sister Williams, and I! It was a great baptism!
Our act of service one day was helping a fisherman pick up little crabs. He would haul a bucket of them up, dump the crabs on the sidewalk, and frantically scoop them up. He taught us how to pick them up without getting pinched. Reminds me of all the days we went crawdad fishing!!
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