11th Week with Sister Almeida- Jaú, Brazil- "I saw a mosquito while trying to think of a title and lost my train of thought, so this is the title of this email now. Sorry."

 Well, the first few days of this week were days of the week. Okay, well, Wednesday and Thursday were fine. We were finally able to find some new people these days. I hope the interest they showed goes deeper than the scum that sits on the top of Utah lake. I say this because Sunday we had a pretty good lesson (I thought) on the Restoration. This woman said that she was searching for a church and was determined to find the right one. She had been in many, she said, but still hadn't found the one. So we taught her, bore testimony, left her with a Book of Mormon and the invitation to pray. She said we could call back Monday. But when we called, she didn't answer. Nor Tuesday. Nor Wednesday. So Thursday we managed to make our way to her house only to have her tell us that she had found the church she wanted, which turned out to be the church she followed on YouTube. This seems to be a common trend among those we find here in Jaú.

But in other news, I've started working on a Christmas thing for a mission devotional. I didn't know what I was getting into. When one of the secretaries sent out a message asking everyone what their talents were, I saw people putting things like singing, playing, an instrument...things like that. Performers business. I put writing because that's what I spent all my time and energy doing at home, and I thought to myself, 'I'm in the clear, here. What could Elder Medori possibly use writing for?'

I will quote the message I got from him (yes, he wrote it in English; yes, he's Brazilian)

"Good morning, Sisters! How're you?

Sister Rawlins, could I talk with you?"

(Never something you want to hear from your leaders.)

"I was thinking about your gift. You said you can write poetry, but, what about writing something nice to connect one music to another one? It's kind of confusing, but, we're going to have some musical numbers for Christmas and I wanted you to write something nice to connect one musical number to the other one. Does that make sense?"

*face palm*

It's fine. It's fine. I wrote a draft then left it in his capable hands and the hands of everyone else in the office.

Oh, Karol finally came back. Just in time to throw a Halloween party, too. Sister Almeida and I decided to go for a little, and I thought I would get trunks, but they didn't even play Halloween music, and, since Halloween isn't a huge holiday down here, it didn't even have that necessary spooky season vibe. 

I do miss Halloween in the United States...

But let's talk about the fact that people down here still make shoes by hand. Besides being the city where everyone smokes and is dying of cancer (that's not a joke), Jaú is known for its shoes. We visited a less active member and her daughter, and, as it turns out, they make shoes by hand. At least a part of the shoes. Their whole house smells like shoe glue, and the mother is missing tint in the skin of her hands and forearms, but she seems to enjoy it.  I took some pictures for memories sake.

We had a super interesting phone call this week as well. 

So we were going through the people in our teaching pool to find out who is actually still interested and who isn't. We sent a message to a woman named Joseli, and she responded that she still had interest. She asked us to forgive her for not responding more because she was feeling rather angry recently, but she told us that we could call at that moment if we wanted. So we did.

We started by asking her how she was doing, and she said not well. Then, without prompting from our end, she told us that about a month ago she and her husband had been baptized in some church a guy had created. 

Putz.

We immediately deflated a little thinking, "well, great, she's going to tell us that she's found her place in this church and we're going to have to stop teaching her."

She continued, however, saying that not long after they had been baptized, they discovered that the whole church had been a LIE. O_o

We spent the next 30 minutes or so listing to this woman vent a truckload of anger. Sobbing with rage, she told us how this pastor had created the church to make money, exploited the members, lived a questionable lifestyle, and, when Joseli and her husband discovered and tried to leave, he turned the whole city against them, saying that they were possessed with demons or something.

We let her rant, and when she was done, we validated her feelings and told her that she had a place in the Church of Jesus Christ. She expressed much gratitude, and when we asked if we could visit her, she readily accepted and told us it would be an honor to meet us.

Hopefully this experience has prepared her heart to be completely open to the story of the Restoration.

In other good news (not saying that Joseli's experience is good news (okay, it's good news for us, just not for her.)), Fernando got to pass the Sacrament yesterday. #SoProud. He couldn't help a happy smile when he passed it to us.

On top of that, Marcos bought a suit for church, and he showed up early yesterday to set the chairs up in the Elder's Quorum room. I think these three are more than ready for callings in the church.

Cara, my journal writing style is so slightly less than average. I don't know how other people do it.

But here's my spiritual thought:

While studying the topic of "True Happiness", I stumbled across this verse in 3 John 1:4 - 

"I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth."

I immediately thought of Heavenly Father with this verse. Imagine how He feels when He sees His children walking in the light.

This made me think about the kind of parent I want to be one day. I want my greatest joy to be knowing that my children walk in truth, that they love truth. If Satan is the father of all lies, then I would have no greater pride than to see my kids walk in direct opposition to him.