Eternal Families

This week was a blur. I honestly can’t remember a ton that happened. To put things in perspective, I only went proselyting with my companion for two of the days last week. You are probably wondering... Is David being a fubeca (lazy missionary)... Nah, we just had divisions for pretty much every day. We also ventured to Porto Alegre for mission tour: a giant meeting with every missionary in the mission with a member of the seventy. It was super cool seeing the people I arrived with, meeting new Americans to ask questions to, and hearing an inspiring message. We focused on how to convert families. A family is the central unit in this gospel. Through a united, gospel-oriented family, many miracles and blessing can occur. I realized how fortunate I am to have a family that is sealed in the temple for time and all eternity. The three other missionaries that I live with in Erechim (Elder Muller, Pedraza, and Pereira), all are converts to the church. All three only have one or two other family members that are members. They always ask me questions about how having a family in the church has affected my life. Elder Pedraza was amazed that my family had family home evening every week. He also always says that one day he wants a family like mine. This hit the heart pretty hard. I thought, "WOW how lucky am I to have a family that is active in the gospel and supports me in all my endeavors." There are so many families here in Brazil who need this gospel. It’s amazing seeing the effect our lessons can have on a family. Right now we are teaching three different families. We hope to get them all to accept a date for baptism... but more importantly prepare to enter the temple and be sealed together for time and all eternity. That’s my message for this week. Make sure to show extra love and care for your families this week. Do an extra act of service, give a compliment, write a note, say a prayer... anything helps. Also, be quick to forgive. This gospel is awesome. I love preachin’ it cause I know through it I can have an eternal fam. Thanks for your prayers and support... 

Dave

Family Home Evening with the crew

Erechim Sunrise

Gente I arrived with

My homie Elder Moreira (awesome English/Brazilian dude that I did splits with)

Splits with Elder Pereira

Splits with Elder Pereira

Me in the kitchen

Chimarrão

Another week has flown by... This week was actually kinda boring. Nothing crazy happened. But still it was filled with many spiritual highlights, adventures, and learning experiences. 

I´m surprised I have yet to talk about chimarrão. It's this tea type drink that every Brazilian of Porto Alegre drinks. How does it taste you might ask??? It is super bitter. So in my opinion... not so good. But I have adjusted to drinking it, because every member and investigator we teach offers it to us... And we have to accept. But anyways, this week we were in the house of an investigator named Roney. He is super cool, and we are preparing him to get married to his "wife" of 17 years and then baptized. He always is drinking chimarrão, so when we go to his house we expect to drink about 10 cups... which is a lot. Mid lesson, Roney was passing me the chimarrão when I dropped and spilled it all over his daughter... At first I was super embarrassed, but then everyone started laughing... so I guess it was all good. Now they always joke around with me when they pass the chimarrão. 

Anyways, moral of the story, we drink chamarrão everywhere. 

Other highlights of the week include hearing an apostle of the lord speak. Elder Neil A Andersen came to our mission. Unfortunately since I'm on the outskirts of our mission areas, I didn’t get to see him in person.  He speaks some (I mean barely any) Portuguese, but his message was still extremely powerful. This impressed me because sometimes I feel like my lack of vocabulary or mistakes when speaking prevent me from sharing our message. But after hearing Elder Andersen speak, I know that through the spirit there are no barriers when it comes to teaching. Elder Andersen's main point was that conversion is not a one time thing... Every day we need to improve ourselves and become more converted. 

But how? Through personal study, bearing our testimony to others, prayer, repentance, and having faith in Jesus Christ. This people of Brazil accept Jesus Christ. But most of the time they do not know him. It is our job to help these people know Christ. And how, through Christ, families can be eternal, we can receive repentance, and we can enter in the presence of God. Hearing Elder Andersen's testimony inspired me to work harder every day. Put in a little extra effort to find that one extra person to teach. I encourage you all to put in that extra effort spiritually each day. Whether it be reading scriptures for 5 extra minutes, talking to a stranger about the church, or bearing your testimony to a family member. If you put in the extra effort, you will become more converted like Elder Andersen promised to us. I love you all and thank you for your support and prayers. Remember that Conversion is not a one day or one time experience. It is every moment of every second of our lives. I know this church is true and through this gospel families can be eternal.

Dave

The Machete

It is official. I have survived one transfer in the field!!! This week went by super fast. And experienced my scariest moment as a missionary, but I´ll save that story for the end of the letter. Big news; I´m staying in Erechim for another transfer with the same companion, and house mates. I´m super pumped that everything is staying the same. This week we returned to Porto Alegre for training. It was crazy to see my American friends from the CTM. It was cool to see everyone’s progress and stories. One of the girls from my district from the ctm has a Fitbit. She says she walks on average 22000 steps a day (just to put things in perspective). Also it is crazy to see the difference of having a native companion makes. Man I feel fortunate to be in the situation I’m in (24/7 Portuguese). Porto Alegre was great. I also stayed a day in Passo Fundo and did divisions with Elder Araujlo and Elder Moreira. Divisions are great because you learn new styles and techniques for teaching. Anyways I’m super pumped for one more transfer with the people of Erechim, but now let’s get to the story.

So we teach this lady named Gillette. She is pretty much a Brazilian Grandma Hawes. She loves animals, cooking, plants, her children/ grandchildren. Sometimes she is a little forgetful, but she is super smart. Also for some reason I can understand almost every word she says. But anyways she is great, and this week we were teaching her when she told us about an incredible dream. She told us how she had a dream about being in a church, dressed in white, with two young men, a font filled with clean water, beautiful music, and her family. We explained how her dream represented a baptismal service exactly. She told us how her family had been fighting a ton of late. She then called for her son who came in the room a little drunk. He sat down and preceded to explain to us how God does not exist and how every religion is corrupt. Gillette tried to defend us but it just ended up being a screaming match. Eventually her son stood up walked angrily to the corner of the room, grabbed a machete, stuffed it in his pants, and stormed off outside. You could say I was panicking a lot. My heart started to race and I prepared for the worst. I thought, how I could defend myself if this guy tries to attack me. My best method of defense = my messenger bag. While he cooled off outside, I thought of a plan. If he tried doing anything crazy I would use my messenger bag as a shield. Eventually he re-entered the room and stood right next to me. I was sweating, breathing heavy, and my heart was racing. When all of the sudden he lifted his shirt and quickly grabbed the machete out of his shorts. In this moment, I reacted. I lifted my messenger bag and chucked it at him... Luckily I missed because he just set the machete on the table. OH MAN... I have never experienced so much panic in my life. I was super relieved that nothing went down. Later we asked him about the machete, and he said he uses it to carve wood. 

Anyways there is my crazy story for the week and know that I’m alive and well. Overall, I’m learning so much in the mission and am pumped for one more transfer in this sweet city. The gospel is true, Joseph Smith was a prophet, and the Book of Mormon is the most valuable tool we have access to. I thank you for all your support, love and prayers.

Elder Bodine