Today we went to play soccer again with all the missionaries here in Belo Horizonte. It was way fun, especially since my team won most of the time. Not much thanks to me, but it's still satisfying. And now I am broken. I probably will have difficulty walking tomorrow.
This week Andreia finally got baptized! Thanks for all your prayers and help. I'm so happy- it only took her six weeks. Sheesh! I think most missionaries would have dropped her by now. But she decided it was time, and went through with it on Sunday. Also, Moacir, the husband of a member in our ward, got baptized after many months of attending church. The missionaries in this ward have been teaching him for a long time before I got here. We'd been there, stopped, gone back, stopped, etc. quite a few times while I've been in theis area as well. But something changed and he finally decided he needed to take that step.
So far this month we've baptized four people, and the assistants have baptized two. If we hit 10 we will break the Staff record for one month! We have two strong prospects for this next week, and so do the assistants. It's looking like a definite possibility. Woohoo!
Elder Montgomery and I found this lady through a street contact named Elizabeth. She lives alone with her two 19 year old twin sons, Matheus and Lucas. They are jerks and treat her very poorly, and also she is crazy.
On Saturday when we went there she was at home with her son Matheus, and she was making dinner, so she stayed in the kitchen while we talked to him. We kept inviting her to come participate, and she kept saying "I'm making a delicious cake for you all. You're going to stay and eat dinner with us." And we had already been there for like, 45 minutes. I asked if I could wash my hands, and walked over to the kitchen where she was. When I opened the door, a cloud of cigarette smoke wafted its way into my face and I saw her standing there with a burning cigarette in one hand and a wooden spoon in the other, churning the cake mix. On the counter next to her was an empty beer can. I quickly washed my hands and went back and told Elder Montgomery "we need to go, I'm not eating here." Matheus left, and we told her we needed to go and she kept saying "no, you're going to stay for dinner." She came out and sat down with a glass of wine in her hand, offered some to us and was like, "okay, I'm ready now." So we started teaching the first lesson to her. When we got to the end, and tried to mark a baptismal date with her, she resisted. She acted like she wasn't going to accept, so we decided to leave. We asked if we could say a prayer and end the lesson. Then she got very serious and said, "You are not going to abandon me. I need help. I deserve help. No one helps me. Don't you dare abandon me," as she pointed her finger in our faces. We told her to keep reading the Book of Mormon, praying about it, and to be at church on Sunday. She did all those things, so now we have no choice but to go back and teach her. She's pretty crazy, but maybe there's hope for her and her family.
At church on Sunday a couple people commented to Elder Montgomery and me: "Whose that lady? Is she your investigator? She's pretty weird." So it looks like she'll fit in well.
Sister Frei's family came down to visit last week, including her 13 year old nephew Kaylor. On thursday we invited him to go proselyting with is. It was lots of fun- even though he didn't understand anything, he seemed to enjoy it as well. He told his parents that the highlights were riding the packed city buses, doing contacts with people and seeing cockroaches on the street.
On Monday we got a phone call from the owner of our apartment telling us that she wanted to pay us a visit and see the state of the apartment. No one went to their area to work on monday night. We all went home to clean the house and make it at least appear decent. Yesterday morning when she went to see, she said, "you're going to have to move out." Apparently not because of the apartment, but because the rules changed in the apartment building and they no longer accept the fact that the people living in the apartment always changes- because of transfers and all that. So we have 30 days starting yesterday to find a new place, and to get out of the apartment that the missionaries have lived in for eight years. Dang.
Welp, that's all the news I have for this week. Hopefully I'll hear from you guys later.
Love,
Elder Sisco