Seek Strength

Week #25

Two weeks, two baptisms. I have pictures of the second one. The first was Denis last week and the send, his cousin Felipe, was yesterday. To meet somebody and two weeks later baptize them is something I not expect to see. The people let you in, they let you talk, they do what you ask them to and choose to be baptized. It's exactly what they made it seem like in the MTC. Everybody will at least talk to you for a few minutes and most of them will listen to The Restoration. It's amazing.

I've been doing a lot of thinking these past couple weeks. (I have lots of time for that since I can't really talk to anybody yet). A lot of it is about obedience. In Colorado, there were many missionaries who would justify disobedience to the rules of the white handbook by saying none of that was actually a commandment. Depending upon your definition of commandment, this may be true, but a couple days ago during my studies, I started thinking about Samson and being a Nazarite. He was expected to live a law above that which was given by the Ten Commandments. He wasn't to cut his hair, drink strong drink, obviously harlots are an issue and he wasn't to touch any unclean thing, such as a dead lion. In the few chapters that cover his story, he breaks nearly all of the rules he was expected to live and then, at the hands of the one who enticed him to sin, his strength was lost. Notice, he doesn't break all of them. Unless I missed one, he didn't ever partake of strong drink, but he broke enough that he lost that which the Lord had given him.

The higher rules of the mission are much like those of a Nazarite. For this time we are set apart and are thus corban or given to the Lord. In doing this we promise ourselves to living and doing that which He would have us do. If we willfully fail to perform according to His standards, we are in danger of losing our strength. 

The same goes for members of the church. Though not missionaries and with other things to do, we are given rules to follow and many of them have the promise of strength, spiritual or physical, attached. Seek strength. 

This morning I was reading the first chapter of Abraham. The first verse is funny, (it would be needful to obtain another place of residence if your father is trying to kill you) but the second verse is wonderful. Abraham seeks knowledge, righteousness, happiness, peace, to be a father of many nations, and to keep the commandments of God. These are various forms of strength and obviously it's good to seek them. 

Apparently I can't access a USB device at this computer. How frustrating. User restrictions are wonderful, but when you're running a business of letting people use a computer, you should probably let them use flash drives. No pictures this week. The two Elders in the second picture from last week are Elders Cabral and Frazao, my zone leaders. We live with them. They keep everybody in line pretty well.

Still loving the food. I am getting just a little bit bored of feijao, but it's broken up enough by the other things like stroganoff, Pepsi, sausage, Coca-Cola, cucumbers, Guarana, tomatoes, rice, Pepsi, and Coco-Cola. I don't think I've had this much cola of any type in my life. At every meal, they pull out one or two bottles of at least 2,5 liters (often 3) and it disappears. Guarana is much the same way. It's actually really funny going into some members homes. The soda is cheaper than the milk here (milk comes out to equal about $4 a gallon) and it seems to be a staple of the members food storage. They buy 2 liter bottles the way we buy 12 oz. cans. Some kitchens have a corner devoted to pallets of Guarana, Pepsi, or Coca-Cola. There are probably ten bottles on each pallet. The only other things they drink are water and artificially flavored drink mix. Sugar is a main food group here. 

The only things I haven't liked here are the desserts. I swear all they do is take a bowl of sugar and add just enough food coloring or flavor to make it gooey and serve it under different names. One thing was sugar and egg white mixed together. I miss real fruit. Nobody in Guajuviras actually eats it though. The word for juice is suco, but they use it to describe anything that is a non-carbonated liquid and has sugar added. The only really good fruit drink I've had was last night. They just called it suco, but it's the best thing I've had here so far. It was just pineapple blended with a little bit of sugar and water. It was so nice to be able to taste the fruit more than the sugar. I don't think I'll ever eat sugar again when I get home. 

The woman who made that wonderful drink is hilarious. She's the first ward member I met here and I loved her right off. I have no idea how to spell her name (I can't even say it), but she's like a much shorter Brazilian version of Aunt Blythe. She even says no and shakes her head the same way. She's like the mom of the missionaries here. Even the Mission President and his wife know her. I'll have pictures next week. 

For now, I'm hungry for a hot dog with real ketchup. They have the wrong idea about hot dogs here and ketchup is all wrong. They even spell it wrong. They don't put ketchup or even catsup. Here it's catchup. They also like mayo with a lot of things. They even advertise food and make sure they put the word maionese in big letters on the sign. 

Subway is horrible here too. A 30 cm sandwich cost R$ 15,90 ($8.00) and tasted a little bit better than the paper it came in. The lettuce was sad, the cheese was all processed, the bread was half-baked and the vegetable had no flavor. Never doing that again.

Anyway, time's up. Tchau.

Elder Dickson