7 weeks in Volta Redonda

Hey Family, How´s it going?


Sounds like you all had a pretty eventful week for sure, carumba! We´ve been pretty dang busy here as well. Yep, I am still here in Volta Redonda, Usina;I´m very happy about that! Our Zone and District moved around a lot; now it´s just us and the Sisters in our district. We have a lot of new people in our Zone, as well as new Zone Leaders. We have Elder Corrêa who was my old Zone Leader in Rio das Ostras, so that is sweet. I was telling him that I can´t get away from him, no matter how hard I try. haha. He´s a good guy. We are trying to change what we are doing here so that we can have some baptisms, and we have been sacrificing a lot and working extremely hard, and we finally found some really elect families yesterday and Saturday. The first ``family`` is Douglas and Luciana, but they aren´t married so that doesn´t count as a family. They seem really interested and they were really welcoming with us, so we are hoping that we can teach them more and get them baptized. He teaches Brasilian Martial Arts so he was showing us around his studio, it was pretty cool. We also found a really awesome couple yesterday that we taught, and THEY`RE MARRIED!!!!!!!! HALLELUJAH!!!!  It´s a miracle for sure, and they were really receptive as well so I´m excited to teach them. The problem is that they are both only home on the weekends, so we don´t have anyone to teach throughout the week. I know that the Lord left us here for a purpose; there´s someone that we still need to teach here and we are hoping we can help more people come into this Gospel.

So we were walking down this street one day, and we happened to run into a man who is wearing a Utah State University sweatshirt. How nuts is that? I can´t get away from Utah down here haha, just messing. Maybe I will take that as a sign of where I should go to school when I get home, but maybe I won´t. I don´t care right now. We had another experience with a hill and hauling heaving things up it again; these things seem to find us a lot. We were helping someone move into her house, and she has this huge bed frame that we had to haul down one set of the steepest stairs you've ever seen, and up another set which was even steeper than those. I felt bad for Elder Glade because he had the heavier side and I was trying not to laugh so I wouldn´t drop it, because it was so ridiculous, oh man! I´m so glad that I´m with Elder Glade still though, he´s hilarious. He was doing this contact with a guy in the street yesterday who neither of us could understand because he talked really weird, and afterward Elder Glade´s like, ``What´s wrong with that guy? What are you, a goblin`?``  haha It was really funny, I couldn't stop laughing. The other day we were on the bus and he was falling asleep, so his head was drooping down, you know? And some punk girl was looking back at him laughing and then she starts clapping really loud to try and wake him up, but it didn´t work. So I´m just sitting there laughing my butt off and then she gets off the bus at her stop and walks past his window and claps one more time to wake him up, but still nothing. Then when he finally woke up, I told him what happened and he´s like, why didn´t you wake me up so I didn´t look like an idiot? And I just told him he looked so peaceful and I didn´t have the heart to wake him up.

He had a crazy dream the other night that he was telling me on our way home from church and I was trying not to die laughing because of it, too. He said he had a dream that he was teaching an investigator and all of a sudden this tank shows up out of nowhere and shoots at him, and he´s like,``Heh, this is just a dream, nothing is going to happen.`` All of the sudden he shoots up out of bed and hears this loud sound and is just freaking out. He didn´t know what to do. He´s like, should I pray? Did something happen to Elder McDonald? Do I need to do something here? Then he gets up and checks if I´m still there, and I´m still just sleeping through all of this. So he decides just to say a prayer and go back to sleep. Oh man, it was too funny. It´s just one of those dreams where you wake up really confused and you have no idea what to do. Classic.

We´ve had some great times here for sure. We are still working our hearts out here trying to find people to teach that will actually follow through with their commitments. It has definitely been a huge challenge, but I am learning so much everyday. I´m learning how important it is to have the Spirit with us in our lessons, because without it, we are just saying words and nobody is learning. It is really hard to keep the Spirit with all of the distractions that are going on during the lessons, but we are getting better and our lessons have gotten much, much better. We still have a lot of improving to do, but we are praying for more help everyday. I know that as long as we are being obedient and sacrificing a lot, the Lord will bless us. It reminds me of the Scrípture in 2 Néfi that says that,``it is by grace that we are saved after all we can do.`` As long as we are doing our part here, the Lord will help us. He knows our struggles and knows what we need to experience in order to be stronger. He has a purpose for us here and we are working everyday, trying to follow the Spirit and find out what we need to do to have success here in Usina. I´m glad I´m still here with Elder Glade.

I love you all and hope that you are all doing good still. I love you all and hope you have a good week. . Talk to you next week.

Love, Elder McDonald