Casa Blanca

June 30, 2014

As a missionary, you never know what the day holds when you miserably roll out of bed at 6:30 in the morning. Elder Xavier and I have had many strange and many spiritual experiences together this week, that make this adventure all worth it! 

Elder Xavier and Elder Clark

A huge change is happening in the ward here, when I first arrived, I felt like this ward was completely dead, like the members only showed up on Sundays. But, recently and I give a lot of credit to Wellington (the new Elders Quorum Pres.) for this transformation, but recently the members have been spectacular! There were a couple times this week when we passed by a home of a struggling member and the home teachers or other members where already there! We have had members, mainly the young men, come out with us on visits almost every day this week. We see other members leaving together to make visits or staying after church to plan activities. It has been great to see all this! This week we had an activity with the youth of the ward about missionary work! That was great too! The youth don’t have weekly youth nights but I think they will start to have them soon. 

Youth Group

We met a wonderful woman and her 2 young daughters this week. Our first visit was a little strange because she told us she felt evil spirits in her home, but we taught her the restoration and dedicated her home and she told us she could feel the difference in the spirit in her home now. She came to church this Sunday and she and her two girls loved it. The ward was incredible with helping her, sitting with her during meetings, showing her where to go. We practically did nothing for her during church. 

One night we were walking to an appointment and a completely wasted man talked to us, and he actually spoke pretty good English. We left him after he would let go of my hand and was singing U2 to me...

I tell people here that I am from Washington DC because no one knows where Virginia is. When I say that, they always respond asking if I know President Obama.  No, I don’t live next to the Obamas.  But, we did have a really neat experience with a big, white house this week. This house is giant I am talking mansion! It’s in the middle of Recanto and it is 4 stories high and is just huge. We walked up one night to meet the people that lived there because we heard they had listened to the missionaries before. As we were walking up, some kids on the street were yelling at us not to go in cause we will die... great, it’s haunted too. haha Well we rang the doorbell and this middle aged man came down the stairs and welcomed us by saying ``Hello Elders´´. So now we know this man is familiar with missionaries. We walk into the kitchen of the house and there is a little 7 year old at the table, I ask her what her name is, Sofia. Then I ask the man what his name was and he says ´´Brandon`` in a completely AMERICAN way. Whoa ... that was weird. So now we are in a haunted house, with an American.. super confused. He then brings us into the living room where a middle aged woman is sitting. She welcomes us and is obviously Brazilian. She then mentions that Brandon served a mission here in Brasilia 15 years ago. OK, OK rich American, less active, moved to his mission and married a girl here, got it. Nope, Wrong. haha We then ask if they are married and they just laugh and say no. Turns out that Brandon is just a friend of the family and he is visiting for the World Cup. The woman, Michelle, is the daughter of the owner of the house. The owner is in Italy on a business trip and Brandon was just there for that night. What a coincidence. Turns out this family always had missionaries in their home but a couple years ago, they stopped coming. The family is not members of the church but are very friendly towards it. It was real cool to meet this family and I can’t wait to work with them more. 

                Wow, that was really long and I am outta time. I just want to mention Clifton and Eva. They are a beautiful couple that I am sure will be great members of the church. They are super young but are super prepared. They aren’t married but are working on that right now. Today they are trying to get the paper work. It takes about a month to process but in a month they will be members of this church! 

Love you all and sorry for the novel!!

Elder Clark