What did you understand?

Eating a fruit like papaya
Oh no! I don't know my own strength
This week went by super fast but was awesome as always. Our sink and shower decided to turn our apartment into a pool last night, so fixing that means that I have less time to write this, but it's all good.

Highlights: I love the people we teach here. Elena is someone we started teaching because she's friends with a member and went to church. After teaching her we asked her to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it to find out for herself if it's true or not. When we went back we asked her what she understood from what she read, at first, she didn't have an answer and it seemed like she hadn't read anything, but then she responded, "I understood that it's true, and that this church is true". That was definitely a shocker, a few minutes later she told us she was ready to be baptized, we told her that she needs to know more but that we'll prepare her to be ready to be baptized. Our purpose here isn't just to baptize people, but to bring more souls unto Christ and help these people become true disciples and find this joy and experience it for all their lives, not just when they get baptized.  


Can't fix that



Elder Lima and I actually had to cook this week a few times, but we were prepared. Beans and rice and pasta is definitely the way to go. Sadly, the handle of one of our pots broke, but we have other ones, so we'll be fine. Elder Lima likes to cook so I still really don't know to cook much, but I do like to eat, so I'll definitely cook more if I leave Patriota. 







We were asked to sing at a wedding




A member in another ward asked the missionaries to sing at her wedding, so that was fun. Definitely an Angolan wedding, and by that, I mean that it started 3 hours late. I wish that was irregular but alas, thankfully church is more organized and starts on time. 







Cookies made for us with our names on them
A super awesome lesson we had: Constantino (19) stopped us a while back and wanted us to come teach him. He told us that he went to our church and was taught in the past, but he stopped because he was lazy (His words, not mine, at least he's honest ha-ha) We taught him about the plan of salvation: Heavenly Father's plan of happiness for all of us. He said his brother died without being religious or baptized and the message really comforted him. He even asked us questions he had about certain bible verses that we were able to answer. Every time I teach about the Plan of Salvation, I'm thankful for this knowledge that I have, of where we came from, why we're here on earth, and where we're going after this life and where we can be if we live faithfully here on earth. I'm so grateful for the knowledge that families can be together forever. Having this eternal perspective helps me to focus on what I do each day, and it helps me to approach every lesson knowing that we are helping bring children of God to the truth and to find true joy. I know that this church is true, that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is God's kingdom on earth, and that through the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ we can all discover these truths that provide comfort and direction in our lives. 

Eu amo voces!

-Elder Madsen
fletcher.madsen@missionary.org
https://fletchermadsen.blogspot.com/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In Angola- Bom dia todo do mundo!

Image
President , Sister Pinto and me There's so much to tell, where to even begin. Elder Smith and I saw a lot of miracles our last week together, but now it's time to see miracles in Africa! The 2 days of travel went by really quickly because I got to meet my grandparents for a few hours in the San Francisco airport and I got to travel to Angola with 5 other missionaries, so that was really fun. We had some German food at the airport in Frankfurt, German food is goood, but now I get to eat African food.  Key to our front door When we arrived, we got to eat lunch with President and Sister Pinto at a really nice restaurant. I ate a chicken heart for the first time, those things are weird. Overall, the food was pretty awesome though. My companion’s name is Elder Lima. He's from Brazil and doesn't speak much English, so I need to learn Portuguese really fast. Our apartment is super nice, nicer than the apartment I was in the US actually. We have a lot of space and ...
Read more

Pueblo!!

Image
  Sorry for the delay in sending out Fletcher’s email. Goat in the kitchen Oi gente! Sorry it's been so long, I need to get back in the habit of writing these every week, I don't have a lot of them left.  I was sad to leave the valley, but Pueblo has been awesome. My new companion is Elder Egbert, and surprise surprise, he's also from Saint George Utah! That's now 3 out of my last 4 companions that have been from there. I keep managing to be companions with all the tall Elders in the mission, but it makes basketball more fun, even if I'll still be the short one.  There's lots to do in Pueblo! There are so many wonderful people here, also a bunch of interesting people, but that just makes it even more fun to talk to the people of Pueblo. We're teaching a few awesome people. Sam if one of them, I was able to help him set a date for baptism when I first got here, and he's very committed to preparing himself to be baptized. Hearing the heartfelt prayers from...
Read more

General Conference!

Image
Oi! This week was definitely an interesting one. No more snow thankfully, but Elder Smith and I made sure to put on multiple layers when we need them. Since Elder Smith is a district leader, we get the opportunity to go on exchanges with the other Elders, where we swap companions for a day and go into another area. I've had to really focus on having continual excitement for my area and to do the work there, because every time this week when I was in another area we saw lots and lots of miracles. Everyone certainly has their agency to listen to us or not, but I still need to do everything I can to give them that opportunity to investigate the Book of Mormon and the gospel for themselves.  One exchange I went on was super cool. I went with Elder Abbott into his area for the day, and we talked to some amazing people. The first person we talked to had us so excited, he seemed so prepared to hear the gospel after all he had been through. After talking with him for a while, he...
Read more