Dear family and friends,
Sorry about last week, I just didn´t have much to say. This week I do. We had an interesting week. I´m emailing today because yesterday was a holiday and everything was closed. We do our email in a little copy shop and right now the air is filled with smoke, something is burning in the back room, it smells like burnt computers...mmmhhh.
Have I told you about the Cockroaches here? They are called baratas. They are everywhere at night. We walk down the cobblestone sidewalks (shoulders width wide) and every few steps you see a big fat barata scurrying along. Also I didn´t know that cockroaches have wings, did you? Well they do, but they are the little kind of wings that don´t get them up very high (what a relief). Well luckily they are not in our apartment as far as a I know. But they rules the streets at night.....creepy.
This Saturday we had a busy day. Sergio was baptized in the morning. We had been working with Sergio to be baptized two weeks ago, but he has been having problems with his son. Ok let me give you a few sentence bio of sergio. He is 30 year old single guy who has a 2 year old son. He is no longer with the mother of the child. He is unemployed right now and is fighting for the well being of his son, he has been walking 45 minutes one way to go pick up his son every other day for the past few weeks. He is always late for his appointments because of everything with his son. Finally he made it to his own baptism on Saturday. He has a testimony of the Gospel and has been ready to get baptized.
When the baptism started the elders had already filled up the baptismal font, and the service needed to be quick because he had to walk to pick up his son right after. As they walked into the baptismal font, elder blair went in the water first. One step in and he looks up with shock... the water was cold. The heater didn´t heat up the water like it was supposed to. The water must have felt ice cold, strait from the hose on a brisk fall morning. But the show needed to go on, so sergio went into the water, was baptized and they both quickly exited the font. The rest of us waited for them to get into dry cloths and when they came back we sang hymns. Sergio sat back down next to me and I apologized for the cold water. I looked at his hands as he held the hymn book, they were white. I immediately looked up at the branch president, he had already noticed the alarming sign himself and was getting down from the stand, he took sergio to the kitchen faucet and they ran his hands under the warm water. I walked into the kitchen and asked if everything was alright, the branch president looked at me and said, our brother sergio is gonna need some help. I knew exactly what he meant. Sergio probably weighs 115 pounds. He is skinny. Friday night before his baptism he informed us that he didn´t have food in his house, so we grabbed him a bag of groceries and realized that he was in a harder situation than we thought. After the white hands on Saturday we knew that he actually was not getting enough to eat. His body has no meat on it. skin and bones.
When the baptism started the elders had already filled up the baptismal font, and the service needed to be quick because he had to walk to pick up his son right after. As they walked into the baptismal font, elder blair went in the water first. One step in and he looks up with shock... the water was cold. The heater didn´t heat up the water like it was supposed to. The water must have felt ice cold, strait from the hose on a brisk fall morning. But the show needed to go on, so sergio went into the water, was baptized and they both quickly exited the font. The rest of us waited for them to get into dry cloths and when they came back we sang hymns. Sergio sat back down next to me and I apologized for the cold water. I looked at his hands as he held the hymn book, they were white. I immediately looked up at the branch president, he had already noticed the alarming sign himself and was getting down from the stand, he took sergio to the kitchen faucet and they ran his hands under the warm water. I walked into the kitchen and asked if everything was alright, the branch president looked at me and said, our brother sergio is gonna need some help. I knew exactly what he meant. Sergio probably weighs 115 pounds. He is skinny. Friday night before his baptism he informed us that he didn´t have food in his house, so we grabbed him a bag of groceries and realized that he was in a harder situation than we thought. After the white hands on Saturday we knew that he actually was not getting enough to eat. His body has no meat on it. skin and bones.
For the first time in my little sheltered life, I saw someone who was hungry. Just plain not getting enough to eat. He lives in a house that is shared with a bunch of other people, and he has a 2 year old son that he is trying to save from a rough life at his mother´s house, and he doesn´t have food enough to live. It hit hard. So for the past few days we have been gathering up food, and our branch president is on the case, luckily Sergio is in good hands. He has changed his life, and is living the commandments, he has made promises with Heavenly Father and in return I know that Heavenly Father will bless him. It is a beautiful thing. He´s gonna be just fine. His little son Rorigo came to church and is the cutest little kid. So happy, just stickin with his dad.
Later that night we had our Halloween party. Not as spiritually uplifting our profound, but it was fun. Sergio came and made friends with the members so that was great. The elders from the other side of Ponta Delgada and Irma Morrison and I dressed up from the wizard of OZ. I was the cowardly lion. I. Morrison was Dorthy and the elders were the tin man, and scarecrow. It was hilarious. We also had Hocus Pocus playing in the background, what a treat. The Branch loved it. Halloween night we had to go in early from knocking doors because no one was taking us seriously. hahahahahha. They thought we were trick or treaters. So it turns out they really do celebrate Halloween here. Weird.
The Gospel is true. Heavenly Father is literally our eternal father. He knows us. He knows Sergio. The Savior has felt his pain and knows how to comfort him. As we live worthy, we get to be instruments in His hands to help Sergio and everyone else along their way to eternal progression. neat.
Love you all.
Sister Liz
Stepper, here! I thought I'd include a picture of a Barata for your enjoyment. So...enjoy!
Stepper, here! I thought I'd include a picture of a Barata for your enjoyment. So...enjoy!
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