Day 147

The brasilian winter is unpredictable, but I have all the resources here that I'll need. Still have the umbrella I arrived here with, and it gets regular use. The apartment has a big box of heavy blankets, and I put two on my bed.

I got a winter cap from Elder Gonçalo but I lost it at one of our visits just a few weeks ago (with Elder Marcone as my companion). We checked at some houses but weren't able to find it. I have an extra that I bought at the closest supermarket to us for something like 5 dollars. Also, was able to find leather gloves from a street vendor for 10 dollars (30 heais), they work well.

Itaqui is a branch. We have about 80 active members, some less actives, and a hundred and something inactive members. Itaqui has been growing these past years, the mission pamphlets from a few years ago count the population here as 40k, but last time I asked it's somewhere around 48k.

The people in general are fairly receptive, and even if their totally unwilling to accept a visit, almost every encounter is perfectly polite.

At times, perceiving a lack of interest, or an alternate interest than the message itself is easy, sometimes not. We work in a cycle, visiting various people until their level of interest, and willingness to commit to our invitations is more apparent.

And this part is key: our purpose here is to present what we know is true in the best way possible, and the rest depends on every one of them to decide for themselves. It's worse to have artificial growth. For example, we don't want people depending on *our* testimony, or solely on the friendships that develop with time. One process, described by a convert of a bit more than a year, is this:

Someone develops a friendship with the missionaries, is baptized *because* of this, and then ceases activity after that pair of missionaries leaves the city.

The strongest and most sufficient members are those who have built a foundation independent of the missionaries. Something also interesting is that, like our branch president said in a talk recently, the most seemingly hardened people we touch sometimes become the most powerful fonts of strength in the local church. We see months at a time, but the process sometimes takes years.

When we stop visiting someone after a long time, it's with a hope that the members here, and the future missionaries in our places can continue the same process we've begun. In almost every case the largest blockade to baptism is a lack of willingness to marry legally, a legal process that can be done for free. At some point, there's nothing the missionaries can do but wait for them to develop their own testimony to a level where they believe in it's importance, or better, the higher importance that baptism has.

Anyway, I love being able to teach in a fairly smooth manner by now. Being a totally equal partner in contributing to lessons is a goal that's more clear everyday. The building blocks are all here now, and I get to focus a bit more on the people than the next words to come out of my mouth. Recently, we had a day-long stretch as a missionary triplet, with us was an American Elder Munns who's coming home in a few weeks.

Seeing where I could be in terms of language and teaching in 19 more months is awesome, especially because now it seems natural that any missionary who put in every ounce every day could be there, even a total gringo!

Love,

Elder Hopkinson