This past week was another good one. We started by sending the returning missionaries off on Monday. It was a really good group of missionaries that went home, a lot of them were great leaders on the mission! One of them that went home was Elder Vilas Boas, who I stayed with for so long as secretary. It was really sad to see him go, but I'm grateful that I got to be companions with him for so long and for everything that we learned together. At least we'll have social media to keep in touch! But then on Tuesday we got to get the new missionaries from the airport, give a few training's to them and to the missionaries that will train them, and had lunch at Presidents house with the new missionaries. That's probably the best part of that day honestly because when we eat at President and Sister Scholz's house it's always american food! I mean don't get me wrong, I like rice and beans but sometimes it's nice to get a break every once in awhile. From there we took the van to the other side of the mission with the new missionaries and their comps. We went to a city called Birigui to do splits with the zone leaders there. I stayed with a new zone leader named Elder Schezoski from Curitiba. From there we went to Araçatuba and did splits there. Elder Niedert and I went to different areas than we normally do, and I got to do a split with Elder Wilkey, who is from Ty's grade and went to Jordan High too! We had a fun day and were able to find a lot of cool people for him to teach.
While I was there though, I had a really cool experience. We were planning and i was looking through the area book and was asking about ex-investigators. Then I found a name that Ithough looked familiar. Elder Wilkey told me a little about the family and then I realized that I knew them! So at the very beginning of my mission I gave english classes every week, and there was a girl and her mom that always went. But, they'd had some really bad experiences in aonther religion so they didn't want anything to do with the church, they just wanted to learn english. I remember thinking "Are we wasting our time teaching?" because only they would go and nobody else. But I just kept teaching during my 18 weeks there and after I was transferred I never heard more about them. Well it turns out that about 9 months ago the girl, Milena, decided to go to church. She immediately noticed that it made a positive difference and after 2 months decided to get baptized! Now her mom and older brother are going to church every week even though they haven't been baptized yet, but someday they will be. Another cool thing is that Milena was barely starting to study english when I was there and spoke very very little, but she always studied really hard. But now, she speaks fluently and she's super firm in the church! It was a super cool experience for me and taught me that no effort is useless. President always says that we are "planting seeds" everyday here on the mission and someday, someone will reap them! It's all in the timing of the Lord.
That's it for this week though. Have a great week!!
Elder Odom
No comments:
Post a Comment