Mission week 26 (04/01/24)
Feliz Páscoa! Happy Easter! Easter kinda casually came along snuck up on and surprised me as all holidays do on the mission, but Easter is literally the reason I am here serving. Because of Jesus Christ and his sacrifice in order for God's Great and marvelous plan to work, and us to be saved! so that's pretty cool guys remember that!
Bapped 5 this week
-Brayen
-Angelo
-Matheus
-João
-Yasmin
haha jk jk i'll say more than that, it was super cool! I have been able to make friends super quickly and gain people's trust which was good! a little 11 year old girl that we were teaching gave me a super cool chain necklace!! and then I got to baptize her and our other friends! our other friends are kinda funny. They have started calling me Robs, or Robo-zão, which means big robot. cuz when i sit there apparently i look stiff cuz i am a little bigger, they like to mimic me and try to look big, latt spread or flex their muscles to compete haha. but they also have this thing called 5 minutes and still friends, where you can fight your friend for 5 minutes but have no hard feelings and stay friends lol, they keep trying and asking to try 5 minutes with me.
Futebol is a bit bigger here! everyone is always playing, and planned a time to play with them every Friday just for a little bit at the very end of the day. it is super good to gather recent converts and make new contacts. One thing that I learned about my comp is that he absolutely LOVES futebol! and it was actually his job before the mission! He was paid to play so he was basically a Professional futbol player! He is also from Recife which is basically a big city on the beach in Brazil and it is Gorgeous!! he showed me pictures and the water there is amazing and clear! but anyways he also gave me a futebol Jersey of his home team in Recife! which was dope!!
Let me backup a bit to my first day here in Ponta Grossa. Chris! the man, the myth, the legend! He is dope and literally lives in the house connected to ours! he sold our part of the house to us for the mission to use! and when i arrived he was our personal Uber! he grabbed us and my stuff, dropped it off, then took us around town to play futebol later! he is awesome!
Our other homie here is this guy who is a recent convert named Luan.
Alright guys BIG NEWS!! right now I was told that I am prepping this transfer to TRAIN!! next transfer imma be training!!! That is awesome! I am hyped. So the focus for this transfer is to prep me for that, and nail down my Portugues.
I am also super hyped to learn to teach better, my comp is super good with lessons and teaching so I have a ton to learn and it is an awesome opportunity!
BUT. President called on the first day and first morning. that was scary. But it wasn't bad, he just told me how rare of an opportunity it is to have a Brazilian comp who does not speak english, and how hard it was to find one and to take advantage of this opportunity to learn portuguese and to teach well, because my comp is a super good missionary, "as best as they come" in his words. but he gave me one task, to make sure that he is obedient and keep an eye on him. So I'll do that and try to be as obedient as I can to set the example.
Guys, I love this area! It is super open and has farmland, trees and tons of green! Fresh air! There are dirt roads and this is a bit more of what I had pictured before the mish what it would look like is this. I love the green and open fresh air where you can see for miles. It's nice. There is even jungle and forest here! I am on the very edge of the city and there is a forest here at the edge. people told me about the animals that live there and not to go there... Even though I want to hahaha, but there are lone wolves here, pumas or panthers, and wild boars. so it sounds pretty litt to me, i just need a little tool of safety if you know what i mean.
Division with the ZL's! it was sort of an emergency division cuz my comp was upset about a rule, they were fighting over the phone and i was chillin making and eating a sandwich. but the division was awesome! I was with Elder Evershed and we went to his area! we are both new here so we don't know anyone and it was an adventure, there were some cool areas though! and we met a lot of receptive people. We were trying to follow the spirit more and it worked cuz i dont think anyone rejected us! We set up tons of appointments for them. He asked me my thoughts on what we needed to learn in our next zone conference and I figured inspired questions are always an important thing and I want to get better at them. I also want to get better at finding a need that a person has.
but the Division went super well and at the end he said that he felt the spirit super strong with me that day and thinks that was one of his all time favorite divisions! i don't know if he was just saying that but either way felt good to hear.
We also marked 2 baptismal dates, and invited a couple to be married and sealed for eternity so that was awesome!
During the division I learned not to hesitate, and to just do it.
We met a cool dude who made a machete, throwing stars, and had a gun and loved to collect things like it. was pretty dope.
One bigger principle I learned with him also was the difference between leaders and regular missionaries is one simple but important thing. Obedience. we have to be obedient. be obedient for the president, but more importantly for God.
I am focusing on being more obedient, and being obedient brings blessing! exact obedience brings Miracles and i need those haha!! but to be obedient is also to better myself. One thing I have learned this week is that I need to become better, so that I can help people better. It is very direct and correlates perfectly. Being obedient will make me better, and then I will be able to help other people better.
My good Friends from Alla 2 came here! they came to my ward here! Mateuas and Paua and their family came here and saw me cuz their aunt or uncle is here in my ward! so that was awesome and i was super happy to see my friends again!
Random stuff:
-Sister Bikeman said we cant use shoes with holes in them, they have to be in good condition and look nice, sooo imma need to buy a new pair of shoes lol.
-Flew pipas
-ate oranges off the tree
-some awesome lady gave us tons of homemade bread.
-My comps nickname is Elder Preto, or Elder Black. reminds me of my good friend Andrew haha
-Sledding on cardboard.
-an investigator gave me another Futebol Jersey! This is awesome! and we are planning on fishing today!
-i had this food called Lambari, it is basically a little fish fried whole. but it was actually good! I went back for more!
-Our friends here thought i was gonna be horrible at futebol, i did too, but i did aright and they said i played surprisingly good... for a Gringo hahahaha
-I have heard about some wild things that have gone down here in the mish. about other missionaries breaking rules... big rules. one guy was being sent home early and dipped out of the airport, ran and is living somewhere here. so this just reemphasized my efforts to be even more obedient. be obedient guys it saves you a lot of problems.
- I had pure Cacão powder, it was actually pretty good, not crazy bitter.
- The crazy homless guy showed up to my old ward again i heard, mid meeting and shouted at the counselor of the bishopric, that man is relentless hahahaha. I dont know what happenednafter that.
- People have all been thinking I have been out on the mission for a while, it is kinda funny. they say i look like i have been out longer and speak really well so they don't believe it when i say i have been out for only 5 months or so and am still new lol.
- Tomorrow on the 2nd I will hit 6 months on the mission.
This Email is a little long but lots of cool stuff is goin on here! and I am loving it here!
God is Good yall! God is Great!
Until next week... Tchau!
-Elder Martin
I wrote a little talk/message I thought was pretty cool, check it out.
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Become better to help others better
Recently, I have started asking a question that has become a bigger question than I originally thought it was. I was asking people, missionaries, and returned missionaries; what thing about yourself have you learned or changed the most during the mission? or what is the biggest lesson that you have personally learned and has made you better.
This question for each person had a different answer! what was the biggest thing they had learned or changed! It was very interesting and cool to learn these things, what they had changed or learned. because for them, this thing was super powerful in their life.
I began asking this question because I realized that I, too of course, have things I need to change in my life and lessons to learn to become better. i wanted to ask this question to find out what each person had learned as the biggest most important lesson or change they made and to do the same thing.
One very interesting thing is that all of the answers that people gave was a Chrstlike attribute! to become more like Christ! I have been using this and writing these answers down to try and learn from these and to grow to be better and to also become more like christ!
I wanted to learn to change to make myself better, so that I could help other people better.
and there is no better way to help people than the way the savior did. because he is Perfect! and he helped people in a perfect way.
So I want to ask you all to think about this question now, what is one thing that you can focus on, what is one thing that you can change, grow or learn, so that you can Become better, to help other people better?
I know that as we strive to become more like the savior, we will become better and be more capable to help other people better! We will be able to share the light of Christ and to share Charity, the true love of Christ, to all the people around us.
So i would like to invite you all to strive to become better, strive to become more like the savior, so that you can help other people better
In the name of Jesus Christ Amen
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