Monday, November 26, 2012

Week 17 - Thanksgiving Thoughts


Dear Family
Well its that time of year again where we settle down and get together with our families and think about what we are thankful for.  Being away from my family this week will probably stink. hahah but I can still spend time thinking of what I am thankful for.  This year the first on the list is my family.  I’m so thankful for everyone of you guys, for your support and love for your letters and emails and for your prayers.  It may not seem like you guys do that much but I want you to know that your support makes a big difference.   I know without a doubt that I am getting blessed from all your prayers because every day I can see miracles in my life here in Brasil. ‘im thankful for all my cousins and my brother who served missions before me and set such a great example for me.  I am also very thankful for the opportunity to be on a missionary in Brasil!!!!!! the best place in the world to be a missionary. I love waking up every morning and just serving all day ever day!  Its great. I am all so thankful for the gift of tongues because I know that without it there would be no way I could have learned Portuguese hahaha Really I cant even speak English so how would I be able to speak Portuguese.  I am thankful to live in America where we have so many luxuries such as huge new big screen tvs and beds and cars and food and clothes.  I have seen some pretty sad things here in Brasil and it has just made me really think about how lucky we are to be born in to a great family in America in a land of plenty.  Honestly I could list like 1,000,000 more things but I dont have time. 
This week has been great. We had 2 people come to church with us that we are teaching.  One of them is this African guy named Dunion, he is sooo cool. I hope he will get baptized next Sunday that would be tight.  The other guy is named Ricardo who has a lady friend in our ward. Hes 30 and is way dope but its going to be hard for him to get baptized because he smokes a ton, its gross like his house is just like a smoke house nasty.  We are also teaching this guy named Alex who is 19 and is a MMA fighter!  He hasnt come to church yet because he has a girlfriend who lives in Rio so he goes there every weekend but since he travels so much he has a lot of spare time to do nothing.  So he has already read the whole Book of mormon !!!!!!  He read it in 10 days. Like what the heck!  Who does that?  haha we just got to get him to come to church so we can baptize him.

So this week on Friday we had a really cool experience with Jose Almir, he is about 80 years old and lives by himself, kinda sad.  He is a member that has gone inactive so on Friday we were walking in the street like normal and he starting talking to us and told us that he was a member of our church and that he wanted us to come by his house and visit him so of course we said “ok how about right now!” hahah  So we went to his little humble home and talked to him for about 40 mins or so.  Turns out his mom died like 30 years ago and  with her death he stopped going to church.  It was a pretty sad visit honestly and made me really not want to get any old.  But when we were leaving we invited him to come to church with us on Sunday.  He accepted but he didnt want to go to church with a beard.  So we were like well shave it. But apparently he is like 40 percent blind and cant shave by himself any more so we asked him if we could help him.   He accepted and YES I shaved this old dudes beard. hahaha  It was amazing. I had my electric razor in my backpack so it was really easy.  After we shaved his beard we cleaned up his house.  It was great he was so happy for the help and for the visit.  It made me realize how much just a little service can effect people.  On Sunday we had a member go and pick him up and at church he looked soo happy.  He just keep saying “tudo bein”  (its all good) like over and over again when ever I would look at him.  It was so great.  We talked to the elders quorum pres and got him some home teaches so he can keep coming to church. 
On Saturday night we celebrated my birthday with the Wissali family because it was also Lorascas birthday and another member of our Ward named Drica.  It was fun we had a ton of cake and food. It was also the last night the Wissalis family was here in Brasil.  They moved to the states which stinks for us but its cool for them to be in Utah.
Well I hope you have a great thanksgiving 
Love
Elder Jensen

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