WEEK #14 - JARAGUA DO SUL - Episode #7 - Diligence

Hey y´all I hope Thanksgiving was incredible for everyone! On Thanksgiving I had a solid dinner of egg and rice on bread. On Thanksgiving we were walking and there was an English school and Elder Reis stopped and said, ´´What do you think about you going in there and saying that today is Thanksgiving and as an act of thanks you want to give the students the opportunity to talk to an American.´´ I thought it was a cool idea so I went in and asked the receptionist if she speaks english and she said no and asked why. I explained what I wanted to do and she got super excited and ran out of the room to find the owner. He came out and started speaking in pretty good english and brought us into the main room. Everyone came out of their class and piled into this room. There was probably like 25-30 people, ages 15-40. I didn´t really know what to say and it´s always a little weird to speak English these days so the start was a little rough but I began to talk about who we are as missionaries and then about Thanksgiving and why we celebrate it. Then I asked everyone if they wanted to go to the United States someday but everyone was super shy and scared of me. They probably just aren´t confident in English, but it was kind of awkward lol. I think we are going to go back there and offer to teach people the missionary lessons in English.

We didn't have a ton of people to teach this week but the people that we are teaching are making progress which is great. We were expecting just a few investigators to show up to church but we had 13! It was so awesome! Hopefully we are able to teach all of them this week and get them to keep coming to church.

One of the families we are teaching is Mario, Rozi, and Carlos. Rozi was baptized a long time ago in a different state and moved shortly after but never put in effort to go to church here in Jaraguá. On Friday night we went to their house with our Bishop and it went incredibly well. We pretty much just sat there while he taught about the importance of church and how it will bless their lives so much. He taught perfectly to their needs and I learned so much during that lesson. I hope that I can continue to improve my ability to teach by the Spirit.

I can finally say I ate something weird! Yesterday at lunch I had chicken heart for the first time and it was actually pretty good. It was weird to think about what I was eating but the taste wasn´t bad. Ive already eaten a bunch of cow intestine but that´s normal here. They usually put it in beans and it just tastes like a piece of fat.

On Friday I gave a training on diligence at our district meeting so I was studying it throughout the week. It really made me think about how Christ is the best example of diligence. There is a part in Preach my Gospel that says being diligent is working even when you are tired. I thought of how Christ was so diligent in his work and when even when he was bleeding from every pore in the Garden of Gethsemane he didn't stop. He pressed forward until the work was completely finished. It is so humbling to be wearing His name.

I hope everyone has a great week!! Love you all!

Sempre fica firme, forte e feliz

Elder Scheer

Dinner at Rozi's home

Loving  the opportunity to teach Rozi and her family!