The Best Two Years

(L to r) Me, Elder Martins, Elder Miranda and Elder Monteiro wishing we had food cause our dinner fell through.

Hello!

This week was quite hot out—we were walking, sweating, and saw a thermometer. 44°C. About 111°F. We decided to buy açaí. It was like that three days in a row!!

This week went well. We taught lots of people; we had two investigators at church this week! Yes! They liked it a lot and we have high hopes for them. We’ve taught them almost all the lessons and they are feeling good about what they are learning; they are praying, and starting to gain testimonies. It’s awesome!

We were listening to music on our little Nokia phone that has been really well-loved, and the theme song from the missionary movie “The Best two Years” came on, about "going to the land of the tulips, where I’m gonna make the best two years.”

Elder Martins said to me, "Don’t they know they are missionaries?"

"What?" I replied.

"The land of the two lips. They are missionaries ... isn’t that against the rules to kiss people?"

I explained the difference between tulips and two lips and we laughed rull hard. Portuguese to English. English to Portuguese. Ah, language is a funny thing.

This week I taught the District meeting training. Usually Elder Martins, who is the District Leader, does them, but I asked if I could to practice my teaching and my Portuguese, and so I prepared the lesson. I taught about how we can use our time wisely on the mission, and in Preach my Gospel, there’s all the suggestions about key indicators and the area book, but I used Alma 17 mostly. In Alma 17, Ammon reached King Lamoni and asks to be his servant. He defends the king’s sheep because he makes a goal in verse 25 to "only be a servant." I thought that the best way to use time wisely is to develop our testimonies of why we are here on missions, and that this time is the Lord´s time. When we do that, we will understand better the importance of this two years time, and we will want to just serve, just as Ammon did. And Ammon was a boss at using time wisely.

I had a cool chat with one of the Zone Leaders who leaves in 3 months, and I’ve got about 3 months out on the mission. We talked about things he’d wished he learned early on the mission, which was cool. He’s nice and has time for everyone. The other ZL here is fast and has a fire for the work, which is great, but his fire doesn’t accommodate much for someone still learning the language, so it was cool to talk to a ZL who had time.

I’m thinking in Portuguese now. My intense language study has stopped, and I made the goal to think in the language now. I had an experience this week where I was conversing and understanding everything clearly and it was really cool cause I was as comfortable as if it were English!

I’ve developed a liking for cheese as of late. Odd for me, I know. One member gave us some cheese with a fruit jelly of Goiaba, a really good fruit here. It was so good, and I ate more than I should have. This week I also developed a fascination with carrots. I drew 4 carrots this week, and it was oddly fun. It could be the tremendous heat that has caused this odd behavior, or that I need more water, or that cheese and carrots are cool. I’m not sure, but I will follow up with you.

I’m happy and learning lots of good things! I’m happy, feeling the Spirit, and loving the people. The days go by really really fast, so it’s gonna be a quick two years I think. Zoinks.

That was really it for this week; I will take better notes on what goes on this week.

Love you all and I hope you are doing well! I am praying for you.

Please pray for the people here and our investigators! Also for sore feet.

Elder Walker Hughes