My favorite part of the morning is always our precious study time. It's the
fastest hour ever and it seems like I can never get my fill of reading before
it's over. It's an hour of serenity, when we can learn and ponder the things of
God. It wasn't always that way, though. Back before we learned to turn on two
fans and some church music to muffle outside sounds, our study time was always
interrupted, every morning, by our neighbor across the way. He's a little old
man who's always sitting on a couch on his deck beside a bucket. Every 5 minutes
or so, a horrendous snorting, hacking, slurping sound that seems far too loud to
come from such a frail creature, is followed by the just-as-loud spitting of a
large glop of snotty saliva into the bucket. I don't know if I've ever heard
anything so disgusting before. Sister Rosado and I always tried to tune it out,
but sometimes it was just ridiculous and we would burst out laughing. Now,
thanks to the two fans and Sister V. Silva's awesome 80's music (I discovered
some more treasures this week! "The Broken Horse", "No Deposit, No Return" and
"I Know Who I Am"!), we hardly notice this sound anymore.
Well, this past week, Sister V. Silva and I decided it was time for us
to meet our neighbors. So the first one we visited was this little old man who
likes to spit. Carlos is his name (that's "CaH-los", as the Baihanos say it),
and with him was a woman whom he called his "Secretary", but who is really more
of an in-home nurse. He wears huge, thick glasses on his shriveled nose that
make his eyes look bigger than they are, and he actually still has many of his
teeth. As I shook his hand I couldn't help but see that the bucket at his side
is half-way full of a thick, gelatinous substance. I've tried to erase this
image from my mind, and since I can't, I'm going to share it with all of you
now. Wahahaha! Anyway, we sat down and talked with him for a good 20 minutes or
so.
You know how people always resemble their pets (although no one has ever
dared to tell me whether I look more like my cross-eyed cat or my gargoyl-faced
dog)? Well, Carlos has a pet turtle (or tortoise? What's the difference? I think
turtles live in water and have webbed feet, so we're gonna call this thing a
tortoise) about half the size of my cat, who was hobbling around the floor the
entire time. I was fascinated as I watched this tortoise, both by the way its
skin resembled that of Carlos, and by the wooden stump that served as a fourth
leg. A tortoise with a wooden leg. What an awesome pet! The entire time that I
tried to listen to Carlos's old-man Portuguêse, I had the Mary Poppins joke
running through my head. You know, about the man with a wooden leg named
Smith.
I was so distracted our whole visit, I don't know what Carlos saw in
me, but he wants to get married now. To me. He's got it bad, too. Every time he
sees me, he calls out to me, "Bom dia, minha boneca!" Sister V. Silva calls him
my noivo (fiance).
Unfortunately for Carlos, marriage is the farthest thing from my mind
at the moment. My heart is completely lost in this work. This past week I've
really been carried away, enveloped, bathed in the joy of sharing the gospel. We
have an investigator named Raphael who leaves Sister V. Silva and me singing and
dancing our way home!
I've been working with Raphel for about 2 months now (which is kinda
crazy for this mission), and so many times I've been ready to call it quits with
him. He's 18 years old, and we met him through his dad, who I ran into a few
times on the street and who asked us to come teach his son one day. We taught
them both about the Restoration, and invited them to pray to know if Joseph
Smith was really a prophet, and Raphael said he would. From the beginning it was
clear that he had a lot of doubts. He's visited many churches, looking for the
truth, and he thought we were most likely just another church. But after our
first visit he said (albeit a little skeptically), "You're different from other
churches I've visited. I like you guys. I'll read the booklet and see what I
think." Weeks went by and every time we stopped to see him, he said he hadn't
received an answer to his prayers about Joseph Smith and as he listened to us
talk, there was always a laughing, slightly-mocking gleam in his eyes. He spoke
as if he wanted to learn more, but I always felt that his interest wasn't
genuine. And then, on the day that Sister V. Silva was ready to call it our last
visit with him, we brought the video "The Restoration" to watch with him and he
wasn't home, but his dad was and his dad invited us in to watch the film with
him. Right at the climax of the film, when God the Father and Jesus Christ
appear to Joseph Smith, Raphael walked in. He finished the movie with us and
afterwards, when Sister V. Silva asked what he thought of it, he responded, with
that laughing glint in his eyes, "What do I think? I think it's a movie."
Sister V. Silva, a little exasperated, said, "Well of course it's just
a movie! But what do you think of the message? Do you think that the Lord really
appeared to Joseph Smith?"
And then it came out. "Honestly, I don't even know if I believe in
God."
In unison, my companion and I said, "Ohhhh." It all made more sense
after that and we challenged him to pray to know if God existed. I promised him
that if he prayed with a sincere desire to know, and not mere curiosity, that he
would receive an answer.
The next time we saw Raphael, he was like a completely different
person. The mocking glint in his eyes was replaced by a happy glow and he very
excitedly told us that he had received his answer very clearly that God does
live, that He is his Father, and that He loves Raphel very much. This answer was
followed by a dream that confirmed the same thing to him again. Ever since that
day, he's been hungry for more. He hates to read, but he's been devouring the
Book of Mormon like crazy, asking for more reading material, and praying always.
This past week, he bore his testimony to us that he knows that Joseph Smith was
a prophet, that the Book of Mormon is true, and that Thomas S. Monson is our
prophet today. He said that after he gets baptized, he wants to serve a mission,
too. "Everyone needs to know this!" He said, after learning about the Plan of
Salvation. We were all laughing and crying and he even danced! He's so happy
every time he sees us now. "You Sisters don't realize how happy I am," he said.
"I went to bed one night knowing nothing and I woke up the next morning knowing
everything!" He came to church yesterday and LOVED it. The Elders said he was
making comments in Priesthood and participating as if he'd been a member of the
church his whole life.
This Church is true. The fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been
restored through a living prophet, and if you don't know it, pray and ask God of
it's true. I promise you'll get an answer!
-Sister Whitaker
After the baptism we had a ward activity called M&M Night (members
and missionaries), which Sister V. Silva and I have been planning for several
weeks. We've got a bit of a retention problem here in Mussurunga, largely
because the members don't know how to fellowship. The church is still so young
here and while everyone has the best intentions, they also get nervous when they
don't know what to do and it can come off the wrong way, so for the past two
transfers I've spent here I've been trying to come up with a way to help and the
idea came to me in the form of a memory. A memory of that super sweet Missionary
Night we had in my home ward back when I was 13 or 14, where all the youth got
to do missionary activities with fake investigators.
The highlight of the night was when Rafael raised his hand, stood up,
and said for everyone, "Hi, I'm Rafael, and I was just baptized tonight. I just
want to say that what these missionaries do isn't easy. It's hard. You all had
fun because the people behind your doors were members of the church, but these
missionaries do this all day every day with complete strangers. It's so
important for all of us to help them out. We need to share the gospel with the
world!" 
