This week was crazy but awesome at the same time. So I lied a little when I said the weird reaction went away after the priesthood blessing. It went away but then came back in primarily my hands which swelled up like balloons and my feet. But I was determined to work regardless so after visiting the Brazilian hospital Tuesday morning (my companion forced me) and I bought some rather expensive drugs and received a rather painful shot in my bottom (for what I have no idea but apparently every time you go to the hospital you'll end up with a shot in the butt) and afterwards we got to work.
The work is going great but also not great. We have several people that we are working towards being baptized but they need to come to church. Our one awesome investigator Irmã Fermina who we had planned to be baptized this Sunday didn't pass her interview because she ended up drinking some coffee the day of. So we are going to reteach that lesson but she loves the gospel and loves learning. We also met with her grand-daughter and are working with her to be baptized as well. Had she come to church her baptism date would be this Sunday but alas it was not to be.
Something funny was we were working with this woman named Sheyla. She is awesome, and she is super accepting of the gospel and was super excited to be baptized. She said she would come to church and was super excited about it but it ended up being her friend's birthday so instead she felt like she needed to spend time with her and when we went to follow up about why she didn't come to church we found her drinking alcohol with her friends so clearly we have a pattern on what we need to focus on with these people.
This other woman we are working with was super funny as well, because she loooves our messages and looooves us as messengers from God. She was super accepting of everything we teach and wants to come to church with us(she couldn't this week because of other commitments) but when we asked to be baptized she said she wouldn't because there are already a lot of different religions in her house and she doesn't want to upset everyone. So we will continue working with her and hopefully after church we can change her mind.
I love this work, its so fun being here, but also so hard. I'm getting a lot better at understanding the people here and I'm working on my Portuguese. The members are super funny because they love saying sentences in English or asking me to tell them what a phrase in Portuguese means in English. The people are so loving and so kind and it kills me when people reject us because all I want to do is help them. There are so many wonderful things here and I'm trying my best. A scripture that really hit me this week was in Ether 1:6 where it says I am a disciple of Christ, the Son of God. That's all we are and that's all we can try to be. It doesn't matter as long as we are trying to be disciples of Christ whether we wear the name tag or not. Our status in life is not reflected in this statement because it doesn't matter whether we are rich or poor, popular or not, having success or having failures, in the midst of trials or on the calm waters. All that matters is that we are a Disciple of Christ.
I love you guys and pray for you, I love your emails and I don't care how often you send them. I just love hearing about how everyone is doing. Eu sei que meu salvador vive. E é o salvador do mundo. Pai dele se ama muito e as todas coisas fez por nós. Eu sei que este evangelho é o evangelho de Jesus Cristo e que ele está direcando
-Elder Pettingill
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