Oi!
So this week has been the same as the other weeks pretty much, just
lots of class and lots of teaching 'investigators'. The one thing that was
different was that we got to go into the center of São Paulo to proselyte this week!
That was pretty cool! They took us to one
of the busiest streets of São Paulo (it was a street where one of the most
famous museums in São Paulo is) and gave us 10 Book of Mormons per companionship
to give to those with spoke with. We were supposed to share a quick message
about the Book of Mormon, as well as talk to them a little about their life and
how reading the Book of Mormon could bless their life. If they were interested we got their contact
information for the missionaries in that area so they could follow up and teach
them more about the gospel. Before going I was worried about being able to
communicate well in Portuguese. I was comfortable with being able to speak with
them since I can form my sentences pretty well but the thing I was really worried
about was understanding their responses and questions. In the CTM the teachers
and everyone talk slow to you since they know you are learning and have only
been here 3 weeks. However in São Paulo people generally speak pretty fast and
slurred together. Anyway, I decided to prayerfully fast the day before we went. I knew that if I asked for the Lord’s help
then He would provide a way for me to communicate, share what I needed to, and
have the spirit there to open the hearts of the people and help them understand.
So, it started out pretty rough. In the
beginning as we started talking to some people, the majority kind of just
brushed us off. They said “No thank you” or “Sorry” and kept walking. It was
easy to tell they were not interested in talking with us. Then there were the people who would listen but
wouldn’t take a Book of Mormon no matter how much I explained how it would
bless their life. It was super frustrating
but I knew this feeling was coming from Satan, trying to get us to give up so
that we wouldn’t talk to anyone anymore and so we would not have the Spirit with
us. So my companion and I stayed positive and kept at it! We kept moving along
and sure enough things started to pick up. We got to talk to a lot of really cool
people. One of the best experiences was when I had a feeling we should talk to
this guy I noticed across the street. I told my companion and he said “Sure,
lets do it”. We started making our way
over there but we soon noticed he had headphones in and was talking to someone
on the phone. So we decided to talk to
the teenager behind him, who we hadn’t noticed until we walked over there. We
went up to him and I instantly had the feeling that this was who we were really
supposed to see and talk with. This guy was completely and utterly prepared to
hear the gospel. We started to talk to him about where he was from, what he did
and then told him we had a gift for him that would bless his life and many
others, including his family and friends. He was a little confused on what it was, so we
explained that the Book of Mormon was another Testament of Christ and had him
read Moroni 10:4-5. He then asked us who Moroni was. We told him who he was and
the discussion segwayed into prophets and then onto Joseph Smith. We had just
learned the First Vision in Portuguese like 5-6 days before, which was great
timing, so we got to share the account of the First vision with him, which was
super cool! He had some questions and we answered them and he was very
interested so we got his name and number. Hopefully the other missionaries will
be able to follow up with him. He was
totally ready to hear the gospel at that time and I am grateful that the Lord
gave me that prompting to cross the street.
There is one other quick experience I wanted to tell you about. At
breakfast one morning I was standing in line talking with another missionary in
what I thought was total Portuguese, with some English words mixed in for the
words I did not know. He is Brazilian and is learning Spanish. We were just
having a basic conversation of how you doing, where you from and where are you going.
At the end of the conversation, he told
me that I spoke Spanish pretty well. I
was totally in shock because I swear that I was speaking Portuguese with some
English! I don’t know if I remember my
High School Spanish better than I thought, or my Portuguese is not as good as I
thought, or it was the “gift of tongues”, or my mind is so overloaded it’s just switching in and out of every
language I know. haha But what I do know is
the Holy Ghost is definitely present in our lives and helps us communicate not
only through words but the spirit. The
experiences I am having have been huge testimony builders for me. I know the Gift of Tongues is real and if you live worthy of it, righteously ask for it, you will receive it.
Our Brazilian roommates left
yesterday. Brazilians here in the CTM only
stay for 3 weeks since they are not learning a new language. I was definitely sad to
see them leave. We had some great times
and became really close.
I didn’t send pictures last week
and this week because I had only taken a few. I will send some pictures next
week though! I hope everyone is doing well! Love you guys!
Elder Davis
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