I love the ups and downs of the mission! Today was transfer day. New transfer but luckily no new things on my side of the island! haha Sister Coelho and i are staying together one more! Which is good because i still have a lot to learn in portuguese and in my teaching skills. SO happy. And we have some marriages to take care of and some people to be baptized. it will be a great transfer. The one sister in our house got moved to another area in the zone and the other sister in our house is training a new missionary from the US. haha... So pumped. I will trade name tags with sister coelho and i will be from cabo verde and not know how to speak english.. just portuguese and creole and sister coelho will be sister johnson from alaska!!! We are going to try to make her believe it for one week. Just one. But i am so excited! This should be a test for my Portuguese and creole abilities. hahaha... poor americana sister.
But yeah. Dont worry i will be a nice cabe verdiana! So this week was pretty normal... nothing great. Just a lot of patience testers. We are having a lot of solid people to teach but after a week or so they stop being solid and just get annoying and stop keeping commitments. I think someone else is trying to follow up faster than we are. But this is the Lords work so We will win!! We are learning the importance of daily follow up with these people. Whether it is from us... or from the members! So we are giving the members the list of invites from our planner.. the one that says the actions before baptism and they have to go there during the week to follow up with the investigators and read the book of mormon with them. Our part now is to follow up with the members. haha
The investigators that are being more chato... (annoying) are Erika and Vitor. I love them... but the week was so up and down. We get there monday and ask about preparations for the wedding this week and they are like without faith that it will happen. they keep saying how they want to get baptized first. So we go through the baptismal interview questions and they are so excited, acting as if they are so prepared until... we ask about the law of chastity! they are just not taking it seriously! The law of chastity is one of the most important commandments and everyone.. i literally mean everyone but members of the church.. maybe... break it! It has become something totally normal for me... but it shouldnt be! So we bore strong testimony of the importance of this commandment and we started to see some changes. The best part of this lesson though was the member. The lord works in mysterious ways because i am like the sister in charge of the telephone in our companionship because i talk really fast on the cell phone and dont waste many minutes... so i was calling our member Nunu who already taught erika and vitor with us and we got all planned that he would teach with us. Well then i started thinking it was weird how he said he didnt know where they lived... but he had already taught with us. So he keeps calling saying how he is lost. so finally we give the phone to erika and she explains to him. Then we wait outside and he says he is wearing a yellow shirt.... turns out it wasnt the right Nuno... At least he was a member though. haha and i think less active but it was gods plan that he showed up because he was amazing in the lesson!! He made them commit to be married and baptized haha it was great. But then they got lazy again during the week and wouldnt go to the records place to get a drivers license thingy to even have the documents to get baptized. So we were going to mark the marriage today, but we go last night to the house and they say they have something ^more important to do^... SO i guess eternal life is less important... but as i said...
I am learning patience.
And i love them... SO MUCH. i think that i why i get so disappointed. and also i can see myself in them. haha so we are still praying and yes.. we fasted too.. so that they can make this decision in their lives. We actually recieved a call from nunu the night after our fast saying that he wants to pay for them so that they can get the documents prepared.... Wow... what a blessing. Now they just have to decide. They are really just living paycheck by paycheck. She is pregnant and doesnt work and he fishes... which is a rough profession because it depends on what he sells and the people who fish are super bad influence... but he isnt using drugs anymore! nothing!!! so that is a blessing!
I know that this is all true though. and i have been seeing a lot of my weaknesses this week. its a little discouraging, but at least i have a whole life to progress. i want to be more understanding and patient with others. and i want to be able to show the love i have for others through service! Service with a smile! that is the trick... do it with joy. I have seen a lot of how the savior is our ultimate example. I am learning so much from his example and how i need to come closer to him by doing the things that he did! Serve and love. And i also know how he was obedient. Exactly obedient everytime. That is what we need to do as people and especially as missionaries. Even when we have a lot of temptation to break the little rules... like go to bed late or just talk about other things than our work... we need to remember how to be more obedient. i think i am at the point in my mission where i can just be good.. or decide to be great and i hope that i can be more like my savior and decide to show my faith through my exact obedience! In basketball we always heard that saying... we have a lot of people that are good... but then there are those that are great. And what made the difference.. discipline and yeah.. obedience to the plan! so basketball can apply to missionary work! haha obedience exactly every time and i know i will see more miracels.
i love you all have a great week
sister johnson
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