Aug. 29, 2009

Well, it’s been another quick week here in the office (I think it passes much faster here than in the field) and to answer your question, yes I do get a bit of exercising in, exercises in the morning have taken a step up and are happening every day as they should :) and at night we get to work in an area here close to the office and the chapel. Speaking of which we had kind of a ridiculous experience last night, Elder T. and I did a division in our area as Elder R. wasn't feeling to good, (flu like deal) and as we were heading back to the house, a group of guys (16-20 yrs old) called to us and one of them told us that he would go to church, (though didn’t really remember ever talking to him) and then one of his friends who was there started talking a mile a minute using so much slang I understood very little of what he said. At this point on the mission I feel like I understand about everything people say, but now here in Salvador I've run into several situations where I barely understand a word they say, (and that not always because of slang) the accent here in the capital is way different from the interior of Bahia.

Elder R. is from (drum roll) Rio Grande do Sul! and has got practically the whole office drinking chimarrão imagine a bunch of grass thrown into a wooden cup deal, with a crazy looking spooned out strainer straw deal, then add hot water, and pronto, you can drink chimarrão to your heart’s content. (Actually I don’t think it was Elder R. who started it here, but the drink comes from Rio Grande do sul)

The apartment is pretty nice, with probably the best shower heads I’ve seen/used on the mission, and as I think about it, it’s probably one of the best houses on the mission, but we may be moving here in a bit cause the landlord is jacking up the price wit the renewal of the contract. As for the count in the house.... 8 missionaries, but we're looking for another house for some of them, normally there are the 2 secretaries, and those who are too sick to be in the field.

Duties... well about anything that deals with money, allowance of the missionaries, house contracts, bus tickets for transfers to and from Salvador etc. (and no, I most def. won’t be switching over to finance thank you very much)

What a great experience mom, I'm looking forward at going back to the temple for the Spirit that can be found there. I'd not really thought about how cool it is to have temples nearby until I look at the situation of many members here, driving something like two days straight (on a bus)to get to the nearest temple, I think I’ll have a hard time saying I don’t have time to go to the temple when I get back.

This week I was reading in the book of Jacob (great name eh?) and in chapt 4 verse 13 it says an interesting thing about the Spirit, how it tells us how things really are, and how they really will be, and I thought about how sometimes in my life I've let myself get a little muddled up as to what would be good to do, and what wouldn’t, but how I need to remember that things are quite divided, things are either good, come from God and bring us closer to Him, or they aren’t and they bring to us at most a temporary happiness and a greater gap between us and the Lord, and the Spirit comes in and helps us to see that difference, like the GPS in the Puida's car that reads out the directions they should go, letting us take our journey in the fastest way through "the most fertile parts of the wilderness" in this world. The question we could ask ourselves is, "How often do I see things (looking back) that I could have avoided had I only listened to the Spirit and not left His counsel behind?" Then let us go forth with a greater resolution to follow His guidance and promptings, letting us see things as they really are and will be, and leading us to true happiness in this life and the next. I know that God lives, that this is His church, and that the Spirit will guide us if we but strive to follow Him. In the name of Jesus Christ amém.