I made it here to my new area safe and sound. Bom Pastor is pretty close to the center of Recife, and it is a really small area. My comp is Elder C---------. He is from the Rio de Janeiro, and he is pretty crazy. I already knew him pretty well (he was Elder D--------'s comp in the CTM). He really is a great missionary. He finished training and I am his first comp after Elder J------. He is really excited to work and learn. But I really think I will have more to learn with him than he can learn from me. For only being a member of two years, he already knows the doctrines and how to teach them really well. I know we can do some great work together.
Our ward is pretty small. We don't have many active members. We don't have a Ward Mission Leader and some other important callings, so we have lots of work to do. Last Sunday I was called to speak at the last minute, so I grabbed a talk I had prepared for a Zone Conference and talked about the value of the soul. And how God loves all of the people on the earth. I hope it went well.
I can see that this area is poorer than my last one, and that the last missionaries baptized mostly little kids. So a bigger part of our investigator pool are kids, but I believe that we can make a change in our teaching group pretty quickly. We can keep teaching those that are interested, but we can also try to find some adults and some families that can help the ward grow. We already found some pretty cool people this week while contacting, and we are pretty excited to return and teach them.
This area is pretty tough with lunch. I have been here a week, and we have only eaten in a member's house once (yesterday). Normally we eat one meal a day with members. But it's nothing we won't be able to handle and figure out.
We have one investigator that is pretty tough. His name is A---, and he seems like he is trying to study the bible to prove us wrong. So we are praying and trying to know if we should stop visiting him or not, but our last visit was a lot better, so there is still hope. haha. There will be a baptism this Saturday that is the bishop's granddaughter, so it should be pretty good.
I continue to serve as a district leader here (replacing Elder J------). Our district is really good. We have three areas: Bom Pastor, Várzea, and San Martin.
When I got there the house needed a good cleaning, so we have been cleaning all day today. And we are going to Walmart (yeah, my first area that has Walmart!) to buy more cleaning supplies. But it is looking a lot better. We already cleaned the fridge and the stove and the bathroom, so we just have the floors in the house to do now.
Funny story of the week: We played a little game. I gave a word to Elder C--------- to use in a contact. It was "sabonete" or "bar of soap" And he walked up to a man and said, "You know how sometimes we are really, really stinky, and everyone around you can smell that you are stinky? This is what happens when we sin. But luckily we have a way to take away the smell. Just like we can take a bath with a bar of soap to take away the smell, if we repent we can take away our sins." I think the man thought that he was calling him a sinner or something because he didn't want us to return. hahaha.
I hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Nielson
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