April 18, 2011 in Rio Branco, Uruguay with Elder Bush

Hey all,



Another awesome week in Rio Branco. No big changes around here. We had some cool stuff happen this week though...and some not-so-cool stuff. Starting with the cool stuff:



We met some cool Brazilian folks...and had somewhat legitimate conversation with them in portuguese. They were members from Pelotes, which is about an hour or two away. They were in their car and stopped us in the street and asked us to show them to the chapel. They're doing a tour of Uruguay and taking pictures in front of all the chapels they pass. It was really hard. The husband didn't speak or understand spanish. The wife kinda understood spanish, but didn't speak it. Also, she spoke a tiny bit of english. Luckily Bush and I have been studying Portuguese. (Bush has the entire introduction to 1 Néfi memorized in Portuguese because we have the cd of the book of mormon in portuguese.



Other awesome stuff: We've found a lot of cool new investigators that seem willing to progress. They're all younger people which will be a good strength for the ward...that is slowly dying of old age. It'll be good to get some new blood. All of our other investigators are doing pretty well too, except for one thing..which is the not-so-cool thing that happened this week.



Rain. Sunday Morning. The meetings start at 9. The drizzle started at 8:40ish. The downpour started at 9:15ish. No investigators came. It was a really really bad storm. I was really glad to have been inside. Luckily, the rain stopped by the time we went out to work after lunch. The one ray of light from that Sunday was that Julio and Violeta, the couple that we recently reactivated, came to church anyways. Funny story: Julio works as an outdoor security guard at night and there are lots of nights that he has to work in storms. He asked us why the Lord doesn't make it rain during the day so he doesn't have to get drenched. (Keep in mind he's probably 50 years old and looks 60) I jokingly told him it's because the missionaries go out during the day, so I pray for it to rain at night. He took it as a challenge. He's now trying to develop more faith than me so he can make it rain during the day instead of during the night. ´´I'm gonna start paying my full tithe and you're gonna get soaked.´´ He's a really good guy and I'm really glad to have him back at church. And even though I've got a lot of faith, I think we're gonna be having a lot more rain this season. It's finally starting to get more consistently cold. We've had some real scorchers this last week, even though it's supposed to be fall.



Hope all is well with you. Keep up the faith, say your prayers, go to church, read the scriptures and you'll do just fine.