The Place of Becoming: Miriam's 4th Week in Pirassununga

The temperature of the weather has gone up while the temperature of the people has gone down

By that title I mean that we met some people with some very interesting ideas this past week.

I've already met 4 different people who don't believe in God in this city, and this week I added to this collection of strange beliefs by meeting 3 different people who rejected our pass along cards because of the picture of Jesus on the front, a woman who believes in God but not Jesus Christ, and another woman who had been baptized in the Church but decided it was all a lie and that the Church isn't a church but a cult.

Also I'm pretty sure 90% of the ward here is inactive members because we found a slew.

All that goodness aside, we had a pretty good lesson with Nayara and Kathleen yesterday about the Plan of Salvation, after which we invited them to ne baptized. They said they would really like that, but first they wanted to know what the "rules" for baptism in the Church are. So we're planning some good lessons on the Word of Wisdom, the Law of Chasity, and the Baptismal Covenant for them. They both love coffee so we'll see how this goes.

Also, they didn't come to church yesterday like we had hoped, however they seemed genuinely sad that it didn't end up working out, so we're hoping for next week.

We had a family night with a part member family Friday, and we also taught the Plan of Salvation. The dad, Célson, who is not a member, seemed rather pensive over the idea of getting into the Celestial Kingdom. Other sisters had been working with him a lot to help him stop smoking so that he could be baptized, but it never worked out. After this lesson, he accepted the invitation to try again, so we'll keep working with him for a bit.

Thursday we visited the neighborhood farthest from our house and met a woman by the name of Gracieli. She had been a system referral with whom we had failed to be able to contact through phone calls or text messages. We finally decided to try and meet her personally to test her true interest level. Fortunately, she was home. She let us in and as we talked with her, we discovered that she was actually looking for a church to join. Obviously we taught the Restoration, left her a Book of Mormon, invited her to pray and be baptized when she got an answer. She agreed!

Unfortunately, she didn't come to church Sunday, but she, unlike many others, had a legitimate excuse: she's 9 months pregnant and her due date was Sunday. So we let that slide, and she promised she would come next week.

We had an activity at the church this week, and while none of our investigators showed up, we had a pretty good turn out from the members. We hosted a friendly competition in the church that everyone ended up loving. I'm kicking myself for not filming it.

But just imagine adults and youth, old and young, shouting, running around completing tasks, and a tiny woman cursing her poor vision because she wasn't able to read the scriptures despite her prideful claims of scriptural knowledge.

#Pride-0; Mortality-1

My spiritual thought this week is an invitation for all of you to read the following talk that I read this week:

I love his insights about just accepting hardships with a good attitude. He didn't encourage us to pretend that hardships aren't hard, or saddening. But he encouraged us to think about the way we react to adversity, and he gave four counsels:

Learn to laugh

Seek for the eternal

The principal of compensation

Trust in the Father and the Son

But I'll let you guys read the rest of it😉

God is good!

Boa semana!