the miracle of Carlos
dearest
darling blog,
first and foremost it is this blogs 3 year anniversary this week! How crazy is that?? Also tomorrow is 5 months on the mission. I feel like I left yesterday and it is weird to think its already september. 2012. oi.
I have been wanting to write about this man for a soild 7 weeks now. Because for reals, he is the first Brazillian man I have ever loved. And now that I have your attention, I will tell you the miracle of Carlos-
My very first day knocking doors we went deep into the favela. I mean we were way far in and going up and down little roads that lead to nothing. We had been knocking for maybe 30 minutes when we went down a very, very long becco. (a lot of stairs) Like in the 100s amount of stairs. We continuted all the way down, turned down an alley way and knocked the door. A woman came to the door and YELLED. Keep in mind this is my first day in Brasil, so my comprehension level is very low. But I still could understand she didnt want us there.
Instead of turning around however, we knocked the next door down. And no one came. So we knocked the next. We could hear someone in the house, but no one answered. For a very, very, long time. And to be honest I still dont know why we waited so long in that cramped little corner because when Carlos finally answered the door, it was not what we were expecting. And I daresay, he wasnt expecting to see three cute young woman in dresses waiting for him either. It was very obvious he was first excited about that fact. Carlos is tall, dark and very attractive. He has a bum leg and he has made MANY mistakes in his life. We began asking him all about himself and very quickly he had told us his entire life story.
After about a half hour of talking to him in his doorwell all four of us were in tears and the Spirit was STRONG. We invited him to be baptized August 4th. He accepted. We also gave him a Book of Mormon and marked 3Nephi 11. I didnt understand a whole lot of what he had told us and I didnt quite understand what we had told him, but I could tell he felt the Spirit and I could tell he was elect.
Fast forward the next day, we get to his house and he has read 3Nephi 11 four or five times. And he loves the Book of Mormon and he has a strong firm testimony of it already. We give the lessons over the next few weeks and find that he has only one problem, only one sin he has to repent of. The man is SO ready to be baptized and he wanted so badly for a fresh new start in life. Unfortunately, he did not pass the baptismal interview and within the week after not passing, he was dropped. (He just could not give up this sin, and the sad part was we as little sister missionaries that couldnt speak very good portuguese had no idea how to help him).
Weeks went by and we didnt hear from him. He didnt come to church, he didnt answer calls nothing. Finally I begged sister arnell to return to his home and see if he was ready to change his life for real. This was three weeks ago. He was not. The sin was still happening and he wanted to get baptized, but his will wasnt there. We told him to read the Book of Mormon and left. We couldnt do anything more.
September 2nd was Stake Conference in our ward. It started at 10am not the normal 8:30. We got there late with investigators, sat in the back and I will be honest, I fell asleep. It was a hot sweaty sticky day and i was tired of not having anyone to baptize or anyone interested in what we were saying. After conference we looked for our other investigators and as we were scanning the crowd we realized no one had come. I started to feel defeated when sister arnell said ´´oh my goodness Carlos is here.´´ I didnt believe her and so she took me by the shoulders and steered me all the way to Carlos, who was wearing his futboll jersey and a very very big smile. We both screamed CARLOS!!! And the first thing he said to us was he was ready to be baptized.
But we still had this sin we had to deal with. We called the rescue of our ward mission leader, a convert to the church himself. The three of us plus the ward mission leaders daughter walked up and down the hills to carlos house on that sunday afternoon. He let us in and filled us in on the past few weeks we had been absent. He had read the Book of Mormon every day. He was in Alma 37. He wanted to be baptized and had come to church at 7am waiting for sacrement meeting, only to wait another 3 hours for church to start.
The miracle in this whole thing however was the fact that this sin we had no idea how to tackle, was the same sin our ward mission leader had faced years ago. And the ward mission leader had this sin three or four times worse than Carlos´. GO WITH THE MISSIONARIES TO LESSONS. MEMBERS BRING SOMETHING THE MISSIONARIES CAN´T. He stopped sinning this week and was interviewed and baptized this past Sunday.
I think my favorite part about Carlos though is his testimony of the Book of Mormon. He knew first and foremost that it was true. That is the power of the Book of Mormon.
first and foremost it is this blogs 3 year anniversary this week! How crazy is that?? Also tomorrow is 5 months on the mission. I feel like I left yesterday and it is weird to think its already september. 2012. oi.
I have been wanting to write about this man for a soild 7 weeks now. Because for reals, he is the first Brazillian man I have ever loved. And now that I have your attention, I will tell you the miracle of Carlos-
My very first day knocking doors we went deep into the favela. I mean we were way far in and going up and down little roads that lead to nothing. We had been knocking for maybe 30 minutes when we went down a very, very long becco. (a lot of stairs) Like in the 100s amount of stairs. We continuted all the way down, turned down an alley way and knocked the door. A woman came to the door and YELLED. Keep in mind this is my first day in Brasil, so my comprehension level is very low. But I still could understand she didnt want us there.
Instead of turning around however, we knocked the next door down. And no one came. So we knocked the next. We could hear someone in the house, but no one answered. For a very, very, long time. And to be honest I still dont know why we waited so long in that cramped little corner because when Carlos finally answered the door, it was not what we were expecting. And I daresay, he wasnt expecting to see three cute young woman in dresses waiting for him either. It was very obvious he was first excited about that fact. Carlos is tall, dark and very attractive. He has a bum leg and he has made MANY mistakes in his life. We began asking him all about himself and very quickly he had told us his entire life story.
After about a half hour of talking to him in his doorwell all four of us were in tears and the Spirit was STRONG. We invited him to be baptized August 4th. He accepted. We also gave him a Book of Mormon and marked 3Nephi 11. I didnt understand a whole lot of what he had told us and I didnt quite understand what we had told him, but I could tell he felt the Spirit and I could tell he was elect.
Fast forward the next day, we get to his house and he has read 3Nephi 11 four or five times. And he loves the Book of Mormon and he has a strong firm testimony of it already. We give the lessons over the next few weeks and find that he has only one problem, only one sin he has to repent of. The man is SO ready to be baptized and he wanted so badly for a fresh new start in life. Unfortunately, he did not pass the baptismal interview and within the week after not passing, he was dropped. (He just could not give up this sin, and the sad part was we as little sister missionaries that couldnt speak very good portuguese had no idea how to help him).
Weeks went by and we didnt hear from him. He didnt come to church, he didnt answer calls nothing. Finally I begged sister arnell to return to his home and see if he was ready to change his life for real. This was three weeks ago. He was not. The sin was still happening and he wanted to get baptized, but his will wasnt there. We told him to read the Book of Mormon and left. We couldnt do anything more.
September 2nd was Stake Conference in our ward. It started at 10am not the normal 8:30. We got there late with investigators, sat in the back and I will be honest, I fell asleep. It was a hot sweaty sticky day and i was tired of not having anyone to baptize or anyone interested in what we were saying. After conference we looked for our other investigators and as we were scanning the crowd we realized no one had come. I started to feel defeated when sister arnell said ´´oh my goodness Carlos is here.´´ I didnt believe her and so she took me by the shoulders and steered me all the way to Carlos, who was wearing his futboll jersey and a very very big smile. We both screamed CARLOS!!! And the first thing he said to us was he was ready to be baptized.
But we still had this sin we had to deal with. We called the rescue of our ward mission leader, a convert to the church himself. The three of us plus the ward mission leaders daughter walked up and down the hills to carlos house on that sunday afternoon. He let us in and filled us in on the past few weeks we had been absent. He had read the Book of Mormon every day. He was in Alma 37. He wanted to be baptized and had come to church at 7am waiting for sacrement meeting, only to wait another 3 hours for church to start.
The miracle in this whole thing however was the fact that this sin we had no idea how to tackle, was the same sin our ward mission leader had faced years ago. And the ward mission leader had this sin three or four times worse than Carlos´. GO WITH THE MISSIONARIES TO LESSONS. MEMBERS BRING SOMETHING THE MISSIONARIES CAN´T. He stopped sinning this week and was interviewed and baptized this past Sunday.
I think my favorite part about Carlos though is his testimony of the Book of Mormon. He knew first and foremost that it was true. That is the power of the Book of Mormon.
That is all I have for the week, the week was VERY long with transfers (sister arnell and i are still here in gutierrez) but we had a lot of sisters come stay with us and we are both very drained from the drama of sister missionaries.
Oh also I caiu´d in the rua (still my favorite sentence) I fell pretty hard in the favelas on saturday into liquid we are betting wasnt water....its totally fine, we went to the hospital last night with president and mom Fortunato and they gave me some medicine and the swelling went down completely. I just kept saying over and over it was a miracle i have had 7 weeks in brasil and this was the first fall.
hope everyone is fabulous!
sister mad.
question of the week brought to you by Ms Katie Webber
Do you ever miss home? How do you cope?
Amazingly enough, I dont miss home a whole lot. But I do have a few moments every night where I hear something and wonder what I am doing walking streets in Brasil. When this happens (and it does every day) I find the moon and do the cheesy thumb over the moon thing from the other side of heaven and I feel just at home. Cheesy, but it totally works.
:)
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