Day 392

We weren't able to write or call last week because almost literally everything closed for Carnaval. If they could get away with it, the gas station would close too.

So everyone (who's a missionary) was a bit anxious for Carnaval to end. There's not even a parade here, it got cancelled in São Gabriel and some other cities this year because of last year's violence.

So everything's gone pretty normally. We have a baptism marked for this Saturday. I'll send pictures.

These last weeks, we've met a few returned missionaries who fell away from the church. We met them at different times. One was at a restaurant at night, the other is the husband of a woman we contacted on the street.

They both went home early, it turns out. The first we met seems like he wants to re-enter the church. He served in São Paulo about 20 years ago. We sat with him at his table while we were waiting to pick up our food. We started out standing in line when he called us from table:

"Hey, good night! I was a missionary just like you guys." He told us about his mission (which he served a large part of) in São Paulo, his companions, etc. But what really stood out was how he expressed regret at leaving the mission early.

"Maybe if I'd been a bit more obedient I wouldn’t be running after plastic bottles for these last 20 years". Earlier he'd noted that he worked with recycling since he got home. You could tell that he connected his lack of willingness to finish the mission to whatever bad things happened after in a really concrete way. We still need to get around to visiting him. This week we'll be sure to stop by.

The second is a sort of weirder situation. He served 3 months on the mission and after going home, married a woman from a church called Assembly of God (Assembleia de Deus). We stopped by their house and taught part of the message on the Restoration. When we asked him to describe in his own words what a prophet is, he had no idea what we were talking about! It's crazy how fast people can (willingly) forget important truths. He'd already given his Book of Mormon away years ago. He now refers to himself as a full-fledged Assembleiano.

Anyway, they invited us to church (Assembly), and we invited them too (Church of Jesus Christ). We went there at night and couldn't find either of them there! We'll have to visit this week. Elder Marques jokes that maybe we're actually more active in both churches than both of them combined!

So the work continues...

I'll be calling soon after I send this, I was able to buy a webcam.

- Spencer