This week has been crazy. We had some interesting discussions about numbers on the mission and felt a lot of pressure to get our required numbers. It has been a little frustrating, but the week has been good. We had two baptisms yesterday. Leonardo´s mother, and Antonio. It was super awesome to be at the church yesterday. Seeing Antonio in his white jumpsuit was really special. We have been working with him for a while and it was awesome seeing him take this huge step in his life. He talked about serving a mission all morning.
Afterwards, we had lunch at a member family´s home and I experienced my first churrasco. Brazilian barbeque. Beef, pork, chicken, sausage. It was all there, and so was I. The perfect combination. It was really good. I wanted to eat all day.
We went to an inactive member´s house this week. All the houses in brazil are walled off at the street with a door or a gate. The family has an intercom on the street and they can unlock the door from inside their house. We buzzed them on the intercom and a man answered. We told him we were the Elders and he went and got his son. We then told his son that we were Elders and he immediately told us to come in. We were just turning toward the door when he says 'oh, and Elder. Be careful of the dogs...' Bzzzt. click. The door unlocked as we pondered what that statement really meant. Elder Davis opened the door and three dogs come pouring out barking their heads off. One of them, the smallest, goes straight for me and jumps onto my leg and bites me on the thigh! I was not happy. I managed restrain myself and did not to kick the dog accross the street. We then went in and talked to Hebert. He's been inactive for a few years and he wants to relearn everthing and come back to church. Maybe even serve a mission. He is really awesome.
My companion traded backpacks with of our zone leaders who is going home. They made the swap during our meeting last week with our zone. We got home and finished out our day. On the way home we realized that our house keys were still in his old backpack. Ugh... There was no way to get the keys that night so we climbed over our gate and under the barbed wire above it to get to our apartment. I then went to the window and started shimmying the shutters. I knew the shutters dont have a very good latch. After a few minutes I was almost ready to give up. Then divine intervention occured and the shutters popped open. I then boosted Elder Davis up so he could reach through a small hole in our window and unlock the window. We had to climb through the window for the next two days until we got our keys back. I felt like we were robbing the place everytime I climbed through.
We have been having some problems with our toilet. It was filling up with water and it took a couple flushes to get everything down. Toilet paper would just float around on the top of the water and not go down. We were worried that there was a clog somewhere. We made a homemade plunger and tried to free things up. Nothing worked. We finally figured out what the problem was. We had bought one of those clean your toilet with every flush type things and it was making the water really bubbly. The water was turning into bubbles, that why is was going so high, then it was too light to push anything down. It was pretty funny when we figured it out. So much for trying to have a clean toilet right?
We contacted a lady last night who was pushing a stroller up a hill. I offered to push for her and we talked to her until we got to the top of the street and the hill. We then parted ways. There was a group of men standing in front of a nearby store and we could tell they were talking about us. This happens fairly often, because two americans together in Brazil is kind of an unusual occurance. We walked passed them and as we did they asked, 'who are you?' They had been so impressed with us helping that lady. They asked us all kinds of questions and we talked with them for a while. We gave out a Book of Mormon and had a wonderful talk with them. They are from another church that is really big in Brazil, and usually their members kind of ignore us. They brought out two hamburgers and some juice out of the store and gave them to us. It was such and awesome, respect building conversation. We are definitely going back there to say hi. Maybe even do some grocery shopping. The people here are amazing.
Yesterday was when we had the baptisms, the barbeque, and the super contact with 6 or 7 people. So, yesterday was pretty much the best day ever. Portuguese is coming together more and more every day and I am understanding people a lot better so I am getting more and more excited about the work. Life is good. I hope everyone has a wonderful week. Até mais!
Elder Siemers
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