Day 273

Our zone in Santa Maria is forming a choir for the big Christmas mission reunion that'll be on December 4th. It's three hymns, all practiced on P-Day mornings at the mission headquarters chapel.

That chapel is the same one every missionary sees first on the mission, and it was interesting to see it again for the first time in 9 months this week. It's next to Hotel Appell, where missionaries stay on their first night in the field and sometimes while moving between areas.

Anyway, keep an eye out for the videos and photos that Sister Louza will be posting after/on December 4th.

Negative point this week was our baptismal date with Davi. This weekend, we were shocked to hear that his parents would only let him be baptized after 2 more years of attending church. And this Sunday, his mother took him with her on a trip, and he wasn't able to attend... which doesn't seem to be a coincidence. But we'll keep visiting, his brother's an active member preparing to go on a mission, and it's a good family. It seems that his sister treats the Church of Jesus Christ with some suspicion. But I think it'd be good to teach the entire family together instead of just Davi and introduce the family to other members of the Church.

This week was our Zone Conference with President and Sister Louza. We worked a lot on making better questions for investigators, which is surprisingly difficult.

But my favorite part of this conference were the visitors we had. A missionary who's finishing his mission had his father, and his father's friend visit. They both served missions in South São Paulo thirty years ago and both bore their testimonies (in Portuguese) of the gospel and expressed their awe at the growth of the church in Brazil. And the missionary's dad, obviously, shared the pride he has for his son. I saw in them the type of person that a mission makes, the same way I realize more every day how a fulfilled mission made my dad (and Grandpa Glen) such a different, better person than they would have been without.

I've written in my journal every day for 273 days, so far two notebooks filled with words. Sometimes when everything seems to be going wrong I make sure to leave written "count your blessings, return with honor". In a speech that an Apostle gave for an MTC broadcast while I was in São Paulo, he said that something incredibly sad is to see a missionary who served 2 years and still "just didn't get it". It's better to get it right now, and keep it that way forever. You'll be happier. So what I'm thinking about daily is that happiness and the end of a full-time dose of gratitude and service, what Sami must be feeling now, and what so many others have already felt (I'll only know perfectly on those last days in Brazil).

I've gotta go, until next week,

Elder Hopkinson