Week 12: Batting Cage

 Meus amigos,

This week was a lot of swinging, some hits and some misses. The most notable miss was probably an embarrassing long street contact that was both difficult to contribute and difficult to leave. (e.i. The dude lectured us) Needless to say, he did not accept our invitation to church.

A big win was we extended the invitation to be baptized to Manoel (Our Friend who owns two parrots) and he accepted! Moreover, Elder Tarin had me take the lead with it, and it wasn't a crash and burn which felt nice. I also just had some good lessons where I was able to understand our friends better, not just their Portuguese but also why/how much they are interested in progress and finding answers.

And a funny story was when our friends Crystal (~6) and Geovana (~16) came to church and Crystal got a brownie at primary. After church Crystal is running around playing and Geovana is "watching" over the brownie when a member (with some mental disabilities) starts eating Crystal brownie! We and Geovana were mortified, and especially worried to see how Crystal would react. But when Geovana breaks the news, Crystal says (from what I understand) “it's okay, he probably needs it more than I do” and then keeps on playing. I was very surprised (and relieved) that she took it so well.

So my little spirit thought is to be like Crystal. Bad things are going to happen in life. Sometimes we’ll have no one else to blame but ourselves, and sometimes there was nothing we could have done to avoid it. But we can take it in stride and keep finding joy, not from ignorance but in confidence that comes from covenants. 

Sinceramente,

Elder Pinkney