Okay America,
This week I don't have a TON to write about but, that's life. So it was PROBABLY my last week here in Monumento (we don't find out transfers until the night of) so it was a little surreal walking around here all week thinking that it might be awhile until I see them again. We don't know for sure, but the ZL's threw the älmost for sure" tag on the me leaving thing. So yeah. But this week we worked our butts off. It was crazy. We walk a ton, because our area is one of the biggest in the mission and also mega hilly, we also sweat a ton this week. It's been really hot lately. But we found a lady named Lucia through a reference we received from Church headquarters that she wanted some representatives to drop by and bring a DVD. That was us. So we get there and she's this old lady about 85 years old and she has this awful genetic disease where she can't leave the bed. I don't know what the disease is called but she has spines kind of like a crocodile, all over her body. It's a pretty sucky disease because she can't walk or get out of bed or anything without help. So her husband and daughter help her live basically. Pretty sucky life. But anyways, we have been going there and we have to be really quick with her because she can't sit up for too long, and she doesn't hear too well. But the first time we visited her we just left her with the DVD and shared a quick message with her and a prayer. I gave the prayer and she just started bawling. Marking the second time so far in my mission that the spirit has moved someone to tears during a lesson. She talked about how God knows when someone needs a visit and it was really special, I thought. She couldn't go to church this week, even though I offered to pick her up, literally, and take her there. But maybe next week, it's a hard life. We've been dealing with people using their free agency freely a lot lately and sometimes it's really hard to accept when people just choose not to progress. Like Volquiria. She 1) Knows the church is true. 2) Goes to church every sunday. And 3) participates in all the activities, but won't get baptized because she doesn't want to stop doing ... with her boyfriend. The trade off is obviously worth it, but some people just don't have the same view as us, no matter how well we try to explain it, and some times it's way rough. We had a funny experience this week that was pretty fun. We were walking to an appointment when we walked by a buffet (they're different here, think more like Chuck E. Cheese, or Weenie Hut Junior from Spongebob) and we saw a giant Captain America, made out of Balloons, for some kids birthday. Anyone who knows me knows that Captain America is my boy so naturally we stopped to take some pictures with him. Unfortunatley some guys had the same idea as us, including as Elder Holmes puts it "the Red Skull" who was "just biding his time across the street". So we stood a few feet away and pretended to be on the phone/checking out schedule for like 20 minutes until everyone was gone. Also, We commemorated the kid who, though living in Brazil, decided to have a Captain America themed birthday party, knowing full well who the biggest stud in the world is. That kid is now the runner up to that title. Oh, also we were teaching a lesson to some kids from the english class and it was going decent, whatever, they were asking a ton of questions, but there was this one kid, like 9 years old who was just sitting over there spacing out (kinda looked like he was on some sleep meds or something) and he just blurts out to us in the middle of the dicussion, "I know the names of some dinosaurs!". We just couldn't help it, we busted up laughing. It was hilarious! Anyways, I think that's about it this week. I'm gonna miss Elder Holmes AKA Brotinho, and Monumento but it's gonna be cool to check out some new places. Keep it real everyone. The church is true.
Elder Marley
