Well this is it. The work is hard, but the Atonement wasn’t easy, and the path to salvation isn’t easy.
The last week at the CTM was pretty normal. The last day was 10 hours of orientation that I learned very little from.
We woke up at about 2 to get to the airport and fly to Rio, and we could just barely make out Christo o Redentor from the road. We went to the mission office, had lunch, and learned everything we were supposed to learn in the orientation.
We stayed with the APs then the next day we got assigned our areas, and got our trainers. My trainers name is Elder Cordeiro, and I am in a suburb of Petropolis (it’s in the south east of the mission and in the state of Rio, so everyone speaks Portuguese here.) My area is 5 wards that are basically a hill or two and also the valley in between them (except for indepencia which is our only somewhat level ward) The hills here are really steep, imagine the Lehi dip, but five plus times the size of that hill. Yeah huge and steep, and we walk up and down them all day.
Yeah my feet hurt.
Our first day was awful! We are in a new area, so we don’t have investigators and we only had 1 lesson. And it was raining all day. The second day was better, we had several lessons! In one of them the Spirit was so strong almost everyone was crying (and Brasileiros don’t show emotion that often). We got two baptismal dates, and 3 investigators. (Who live at the top of the biggest hill in our area at the end of a little tiny dirt foot path that we have to cross a stream to get to).
Saturday and Sunday nothing huge happened, except we have another investigator (who lives just a little bit from the top of São Paulo).
God blesses his missionaries. We get to see blessings daily, and there are many miracles. For example on Thursday when it was raining we would just stepped under a roof and the rain would go from a drizzle to pouring! And then as we are leaving it would return to a drizzle.
There are so many dogs here, and every time I see one I think of Blaze, and I just want to pet it and play with it.
The other day we were walking through the city and there were some horses just chillin’ outside of some house with some cãos (dogs) barking at it.
My companion and I are starting to be able to understand each other and we teach each other our languages. I am getting to the point where I can say just about anything I want to (even if I sound like a 3 year old). I still find a lot of people hard to understand (some are really easy and I can understand every word, but there are others that I can barely understand anything.
I am learning a lot about teaching, and am getting pretty good at contacts and the baptismal challenge, I still struggle to speak, but the point gets across.
The locals can’t pronounce my name, so they all say Elder Lindsh, or Elder Lindish.
I love you all.
Stay firm in the faith that our reunion may be like that of Alma and the sons of Mosiah.
I know that Jesus is the Christ. I know that we have a father in heaven who loves us and blesses us. I know that Christ atoned for our sins, and that if we have faith in him, repent, are baptized, receive the Holy Ghost and endure to the end, we can repent and be saved. I testify that Joseph Smith restored the Church of Jesus Christ, again on the earth. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is Gods church on the earth today. God loves you. He watches over you.
-Love Elder Lindsey
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