Mid-week 11...Heading to Brazil, finally!!!

I got my visa! I leave Monday night at 5:30 and go to Atlanta where there is a 3 hour layover till I leave for Sao Paulo. I'm gonna try to call home sometime that in there so I'm just gonna call mom's cell again. Hope to talk to ya'll soon and have some great stories.

 

Com muito amo (I can do that now that I'm gonna be speaking Portuguese soon).

Elder Saueressig

Week 11...Rockwood, TN

I am so grateful for that amazing email that Dad wrote me, it almost brought tears to my eyes it was so inspiring and moving. It is pretty funny to see "Hey brat," in my inbox. I do appreciate the in-depth letter. Enough ragging on your expert journalism (see that I can insult and compliment at the same time.) I really do appreciate the letters here though, it is nice knowing what is going on back home. Just make sure that you tell me the football scores for the KSU games.

 

Oh and Pres. Irion said to call him about my visa situation, so I might email ya'll later today. He also could be messing with me as he does have a sense of humor. Actually there is a pretty good story behind that too. Pres. Irion is an OBGYN and an Elder had a sharp pain in his side. So he called Pres. about it as he is doctor asking what he should do. He said "well I would normally prescribe birth control pills but I don't think that is appropriate in this situation."

 

This week was pretty humbling. It seemed like every appointment we had fell through and only about 5% of the doors we knocked on answered and none of them would listen to us. I have really been trying to have a good mood besides all of this and I think it is starting to wear off on the people we do talk to. I have also learned how to ask enough questions that even if they don't want to talk to us I can keep them at the door for a couple minutes. Maybe that is why nobody answers, because they are all so annoyed of us and word has gotten around. We also had transfers this week and let me say something. My trainer is pretty great. We went with the District Leader and I felt like we were teaching him. He actually said at the end of it that he was impressed with us and he actually wants to try asking more questions.

 

This week was just kind of a normal week. Other than the awesome sign that we found randomly on the sign of the road. It was pretty far up the road almost to the point where we heard banjos. It said, "please do not dump dead animals." This sign did make me giggle a little bit. I want to take a picture of me laying in front of it so bad. Other than that it has been great. Oh and I have recently discovered the greatness of Bruce R McConkie. My companion for Halloween wants to get an Elder McConkie tag and get the Bruce glasses and go around all day saying "There is no salvation in believing false doctrine."

 

Love,

Elder Saueressig

Week 10...Rockwood, TN

It has been raining quite a bit but luckily no flooding. I have heard other parts of the state haven't been so lucky, especially earlier where there was 2 feet of water on the streets.

 

(In our weekly email to Elder Saueressig, we told him that John took Will out to shoot a gun for the first time this week). I think dad should throw a turkey shell into that shotgun. Then, I bet Will wouldn't enjoy it as much. Jokes aside, I was getting worried about who dad would take hunting. I wasn't sure if he was going to drag Cody along with him. It's good to hear that dad has a new buddy now and pretty soon he will be out shooting dad when he goes duck hunting like I did the last time I went hunting with him. Just rubbing that in a little.

 

Speaking of hunting, you would not believe all the dove that I see around hear. Literally every bush that we walk across has at least 3 dove that pop out. It seems crazy that it is almost that time of year already.

 

Well this week has definitely been interesting to say the least. I think this week has been the biggest roller coaster I have been on in a while. What's funny is it has nothing to do with me but broke my heart to pieces. Our golden investigator Miss Flo that was so eager to learn about our church well turns out she's not so golden or even an investigator for that matter.

 

To start off with this lady is 71 and has gone through some really tough times. She lost her son and her husband in 2 years of each other. Then she lost her daughter a couple years after that. We invited her to come to a genealogy meeting that we had at the church. We arranged a ride for her to get there from another older lady (I'm not calling everyone old for fun, there is a reason behind it). Then after a couple other things we got to the church and the lady that gave her a ride said that our investigator was already a member. So to check this we looked on our less active list and sure enough her name was there. So after talking with Miss Flo a little bit, she said that she doesn't remember being baptized but she did remember going to our church. So then we got to tell everyone that we were just kidding and we didn't have a baptism for the 24th. So I'm just assuming that since she was going through a tough time and her age is what made her forget. I guess it is good that we didn't baptize her and go to do paper work and figure out she was already a member.

 

Also, the icing on the cake is that we now get jokes from members and our leaders that we could just start teaching our Branch President our Branch Missionary Leader.

 

The good news is that our branch is growing. Our little branch is trying hard to become a ward. I guess there is just a certain pride in saying ward instead of branch. A couple weeks before I got here they averaged around 60 people which is pretty decent but the Stake President said that he would put in the paper work for them to become a ward if they averaged over 100 for a couple months. These last two weeks we had 112 and 102 people attending. It is so cool seeing people getting excited over church attendance and seeing their desire of missionary work grow. We have also been working really hard on getting less actives to church. We are starting what we call a "blitz" every first Thursday of the month where the branch gets together and splits off to try to see all of the less actives and cover the most ground that we can.

 

This week one of the Seventy (church leader) came down to talk to two of the zones in our mission. Luckily, I got to attend. The Elder speaking to us from the seventy was Elder Kopischke. We got to have a question and answer session with him and it was so cool because he started off saying that he wouldn't call on us as long as we were awake but the only reason is so we could let our thoughts wander and seek revelation. It really was amazing as I thought about each of our investigators the promptings and guidance I received. Although I did learn a lot from what he said, I felt like the spirit really guided that meeting. He really was a special witness of Christ and the strength and power from which he spoke truly did touch me.

 

I have been thinking a lot about why the Lord would trust me to be his messenger and my duty as a missionary. So as I read through Elder Holland's talk "Lord, I Believe" a particular quote stood out to me.

 

It says "So be kind regarding human frailty—your own as well as that of those who serve with you in a Church led by volunteer, mortal men and women. Except in the case of His only perfect Begotten Son, imperfect people are all God has ever had to work with. That must be terribly frustrating to Him, but He deals with it. So should we."

 

I love that talk so much. I think I have read through it at least three times a week on my mission and I encourage everyone to read it. I love y'all so much and pray for you guys every night.

 

Love,

Elder Saueressig

Week 9...Rockwood, TN

So I'll admit it, it has definently been hard on my mission. I got here and we basically had to start all over again. We have had people that seem like they want to listen to our message then drop us. It's not the lack of effort on our part. We have been visiting investigators and tracting what feels like non-stop with no prevail. We haven't had one single person that we have taught (that the sisters didn't take) show up to church but, the Lord watches out for us. I remember hearing a lot before I left that you'll have bad days but the good days will make it worth it. Well, that happened this week for sure.

 

To start off this week we decided to visit someone that they tracted into a couple of months ago but never really got around to teaching. We got there and the house and people in it were definitely rough which is fine because the gospel can bless all lives. There were definite signs of some hard drugs being taken. For example, on the table that I was about to lay my scriptures on I noticed that there were some white streaks on the table and I guess I could've touched them to see if it was the powdery substance I thought it was but I really didn't want that particular substance on my hands. The peoples' teeth (the ones they had) showed signs of wear from harsh chemicals but that turned out to be an amazing lesson.

 

We gave one of the gentleman there a Book of Mormon and he said that he would have it read in at least two days as he finished the entire Bible in four (granted he was in jail). The down side is he was moving but the rest are staying. We committed them to baptism on the 31st of August.

 

Then we were carried on after that doing what any other missionaries in the South do confounding preachers (another story about that but that is for another time) and being followed by not so friendly canines. Then yesterday is when we really saw the blessings of the Lord in our work.

 

Yesterday during Gospel Principles we got informed that someone called the Branch President asking how she could be baptized. Yes, this really did happen. A couple thoughts ran through our minds, it could be a prank call. But they left a number so we decided to call it. The lady that we talked to was named Florence but, being from the South, she told us to call her Miss Flo. She was super excited about getting to meet us.

 

After dinner with the Branch President we decided to try to find her. After Google Maps lying to us and a little inspiration we were able to find her. She was one of the sweetest old ladies I have met. She is struggling with Lupus right now but that isn't slowing her down. She was meeting with her friend in Knoxville and her friend told her she was getting baptized and that Miss Flo needed to call her local branch to figure out how to join.

 

She also went on to inform us that she was actually told not to come back from other churches. That's definitely not how Christ told us to treat the widowed and afflicted!

 

We committed her to baptism on the 24th of August and our lesson went fantastic. My trainer said that he felt like he was watching an episode of the District and he actually didn't want to jump in because he was scared he would mess something up.

 

Then after this we got an online referral from one of the cards we handed out. Which unfortunately we couldn't meet because we don't teach when the sun don't shine.

 

We also tracted into a couple and they told us to call them Mama Lou and Big daddy. We had a really good discussion with them and have a return appointment with them.

 

This week truly has been a blessing and our hard work and effort has been rewarded. I wasn't able to mention all the people that we have met too. I love it down here and if I didn't get my Visa I'd be alright with it. The people down here are so caring and even if they are stubborn and believed they have been saved even when they are cussing out another religion. I am so grateful for this opportunity to learn and grow.

 

Oh, and I forgot to mention the guy who had that amazing dream. Yeah, he got baptized this last weekend.

 

Love,

Elder Saueressig