BiriÁgua!

Well it´s fun to be back in Birigui! We had a pretty good yet extremely tiring week. I´m yawning it up write now as I write this email. This is my first time getting to know a brand new area with neither of us being familiar with it at all. We have been lost several times. But it´s all worked out so far. We also had Stake Conference yesterday. It was a really good conference. The members here are really good. There are quite a few excited about the work and are ready to gelp out.

 

I just remembered that you guys don´t even know the name of my ´´filho´´ or son. He is Elder Chaves (Keys). He is from Belém, Pará. He is absolutely amazing. I was really nervous about getting a new missionary not ready for the mission life and not willing to adjust but he is already in the grove of things. He loves to keep all of the rules ``certinho´´ or exactly. It´s such a refresher. He has also picked up really quickly on the teaching techniques. I´m super excited for this transfer. ALso his profession before the mission was ballroom dance professor. He is apparently very good and was pretty famous up in Pará. It´s pretty cool to see that he made the sacrifice to come on a mission. He´s a bit older already but it is really nice to have a companion that is more mature.

 

I also had the opportunity to do my first baptismal interview last Saturday. What an experience. I was a little nervous because I realized that it was just me and the investigator and I was the one deciding if the investigator was ready to make this important step in life. It was kind of a strange feeling. But it was amazing to be led by the Spirit and be told exactly what to say to him to help him progress. It was a really neat experience. I´m excited to have many more of these experiences.

 

At Stake Conference yesterday we heard President Prieto speak and also Elder Ribeiro, member of the Seventy. It was a really nice meeting. Elder Ribeiro told a really cool story that I will sum up. So there a was man getting a haircut by an atheist barber. He was sitting in the chair listening to the barber ramble about how he used to believe in God but had long since lost his faith and no longer believed in anything. He saw so much suffering in the world, so many people making bad decisions that he couldn´t imagine there truly being a God. If there was a God their would be no suffering. The man getting his hair cut was a Christian but decided not to argue about the subject and saw quiet. After the haircut he quietly got up and left. He was down the street and saw a ragged looking man sitting on the corner with a long beard and long dirty hair. THe man stopped and looked and thought for a minute and then ran back to the barber. He told the barber ´´ you are not a barber´´. The barber responded surprisedly, ``of course I am. I just got cutting your hair. Did I mess up?´´ The man rsponded no you are not a barber. At the same moment the ragged man walked by and the man whose hair had been cut said ``look at the man. He has long hair and a beard. If barbers existed there would exist long hair and beards.´´ At that moment the Barber realized his fault. The same way that we have to go to the barber to get our hair cut we have to seek the Lord and receive his blessings.

 

I thought it was a neat little story to disprove the idea that suffering proves that there is no God.

 

Well, I hope you all have a great week. my time is running out. I have a lot more I could say but....it was a fantastic week! I love you all

Elder McLelland