Aiight,
Just a little bit excited here! Vitoria is SOOOO beautiful! It kinda
reminds me of Hawaii...very hot and humid but our mission home is right on a
super nice beach. Love it!!! My first day, kinda rough. So much Portuguese and
no sleep but it´s all good. My first area is in Aurora which is in the state
Rio but very far from the famous city. Some fun facts about this area...not
very nice at all, it´s winter here and we are getting up to 95 degrees (I hear summer
is more like 115), very poor, same surprisingly, and just a grand time! We are
doing great work here!
My
companions is Elder Lopes and he is from São Paulo and speaks not a lot of
English so the Portuguese is coming fast luckily! He´s awesome and has 1 year
and a month here.
The rumor is true, we don´t flush toilet paper here. Just throw it away
in case you wanted a fun fact. Not very fun but a fact nonetheless.
This week was a game changer! I love the mission but it´s also so hard!
I´ve never sweat so hard, prayed so hard, and tried so many new things. Food
here is awesome so can´t complain!
Here is a scripture I read that legit got me through the week and then a
way cool story! 1 Corinthians 1: 17, 27 ´´For Christ sent me not to
baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of
Christ should be made of none effect....27 But God hath chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise and God hath chosen the weak things of
the world to confound the things which are mighty.´´
Now, here´s how this scripture applies to my week...
My
companion and I had a reference named Marcelo so we found their address,
clapped our hands and yelled their names and went inside. Their house was soooo
humble. I am so surprise how people can live in circumstances like these. So
appreciative for what I have but SO appreciative for experiences like these to
humble me. We walked up a flight of stairs and there was this guy, Marcelo, lying
in bed with this homemade paper towel diaper that wasn´t really doing the job.
His wife was yelling in a lot of Portuguese and the whole situation was just
gut wrenching. She was explaining a really long story and I got about 0 of it
and I just LONGED and PLEADED in prayer to Heavenly Father to let me know what
was happening. I got the story later from my companion and it and apparently
Marcelo likes to drink. One day he got drunk and went into the road and got hit
by a car. This was 6 months ago. Half his body is paralyzed and the wife was
just furious with his decision. Anyways, back to real life. I just longed to
hear what was happening. I prayed and prayed just knowing I could be a good
instrument right then, or if anything I could empathize greater. I was sitting
there just kinda waiting for the gift of tongues or a voice to translate in my
head but I got nothing of the sort. I sat there and I heard the word blessing
in my head. We needed to give a priesthood blessing. I stumbled the word
´´benção´´ to my companion and we asked to give a blessing. They were super
confused but in my terrible Portuguese I anointed the oil and my companion
blessed him that through his faith he would be able to walk again if he
demonstrated enough faith. SPIRIT WAS SO STRONG. After the blessing everyone
kinda sat there just quiet and the lady that was yelling and not really
receptive of the church just kinda soberly said, ´´I’m interested in your
message.´´ Such a testimony builder to me! So powerful! Not sure what is to
come of this but praying for a mighty change!!
Love ya all! Eat some
ice cream
Elder Gardanier
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| Daniel's first haircut from his companion |
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