Well, this week could have gone much worse and could have gone much better. One of the members of the ward here has schizophrenia and is bi-polar and he hasn't been taking his medicines since he was baptized, and something happened where he ran away, so we helped the ward look for him. We started helping Saturday night and we found him Sunday morning while we were looking for our investigators. We've been passing by his house a lot because his family isn't members. They might have to send him to a recuperation center, but his family has been really impressed by the support the ward has given.
On Sunday, none of our investigators went to church except for Joao. Joao...what can you say about Joao? We found him Saturday night and invited him to church, and when we passed by the next morning, he was ready. We weren't in Elder's Quorum, because I'm helping the Primary get ready for the program by playing the piano. Turns out that in Elder's Quorum that Joao fought the quorum about prophets, the Bible, and all the items covered in the Articles of Faith. We passed by Sunday night to see if we could continue teaching him and he invited us to pass by and explain everything. Last night we had a monster lesson with him and after a lot of scriptures and testimony, he said he would pray about Joseph Smith.
During the course of the lesson we found out that Joao is a die-hard UFO believer. He has hundreds of books about it. He also reads the Bible and finds UFO references there too. For example-the pillar of fire with Moses and the Hebrews-UFO, star over Bethlehem-UFO. The war in heaven destroyed the moon, which before had been inhabited and Satan fled to Earth, where Jesus will destroy him...and etc. Will be interesting to say the least.
One of the weeks where at the end you shake your head and feel grateful that what you're doing is the most important thing on Earth in your life right now, because if not I would take the first bus/plane home because sometimes the things that happen are just ridiculous. But I guess it's all about the small things that make it all worth it.
In my email, I asked him if there was some sort of tradition where the missionaries light fire to something to mark their 1 year point, what's his favorite principle to teach, and does he ever think "Holy cow, I'm in Brazil and I'm speaking Portuguese!"? Here are the answers to my questions:
Mom-after an Elder almost burned down a house we aren't allowed to burn things on the mission. My favorite thing to teach is Law of Chastity. I'm just kidding. You have to be really honest with people here, especially the teenagers. Teaching teenage girls and practicing with the Sisters in district meeting is the hardest.
I like to teach the Book of Mormon best.
I guess I never think about speaking Portuguese, except when they don't understand me. And it's really hot lately, so you never forget you're in Brasil.
I was looking at Fano's football pictures, who is West Lake? Shouldn't they have started region play? Fano's tackling picture is pretty funny (see picture below).
Love,
Elder Barton
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