Miriam's 5th Week in Pirassununga- Sis. Rodriguez

This week was quite uneventful if I'm being completely honest. It consisted mostly of the usual missionary work shenanigans: talking to people on the road, knocking doors, teaching lessons, being rejected, and trying to understand why commitments are such a hard thing for people.

We met a dude a while back named Renato and we were trying to teach him about the Restoration, but as open as he was to receive us, his pride in his own understanding of the Bible had completely closed him. We invited him to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it, but he wouldn't because he said it wouldn't make a difference.

In short, we stopped teaching him.

I was actually studying pride this week (because I've got too much of it), and I read a couple of really good talks (maybe I'll include a link; that depends on my memory). The overall message was that pride is the universal sin; the root of every other sin and source of all contention.

Elder Uchtdorf said, "Pride is a deadly cancer. It is a gateway sin that leads to a host of other human weaknesses. In fact, it could be said that every other sin is, in essence, a manifestation of pride."

He also wrote: "Every mortal has at least a casual if not intimate relationship with the sin of pride. No one has avoided it; few overcome it."

My goal for this next little while is to be better at recognizing the pride in myself so I can strip myself of it, as Alma said.

If pride is the root of all other sin, then it seems like a good idea to go straight to it to kill the rest of the weed.🖖

But anyways, what DID happen this week is that we were able to go to the Christmas devotional that the mission put on. It was quite the challenge getting there because bus hours were completely screwy, a van was too expensive, and so was an Uber.  So President Card himself went out of his way by an hour to pick us up.

I'm really grateful I got to go because the singers and pianists really brought the spirit to the entire congregation.

I'll try and get ahold of the video they took so you guys can watch it (in Portuguese).

Oh yeah! We got locked out of our house Friday night! Sister Rodriguez and I had lost our key a while back, so we were relying on the other Sisters. But this day they forgot their keys inside the house, and even though we didn't lock the gate, when you shut it, it's impossible to open without a key (freaking Brazilian houses). We tried climbing up and over, but it was too high to be safe, so we had to call a dude to come pick our lock and we finally entered at 10:30. 

It literally took him 30 seconds to unlock the door and it cost R$100. 🙄

And here are the links as promised:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2010/10/pride-and-the-priesthood?lang=eng

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1989/04/beware-of-pride?lang=eng

Driving past a cemetery...