Elder Devin Harris' Mission in Natal Brazil: Thomas S. Monson Ties, Rejection, and Dengue

So this week was really good but pretty slow, Not a whole lot happened this week. Just a lot of walking, a lot of sweating, and a lot of teaching ;) But it´s all good. So I finally got the package from the family. The kids loved the little toys you guys sent to give out to them! They were all so excited when I gave them to them! And my comp loved the tie and the mints. Haha he calls the tie his "Gravata dos profetos" or his "prophet tie" because he thinks it´s such a slick looking tie haha. They always call my ties Thomas S. Monson ties because they think I got them all from him for some reason because I live in Utah haha. Yeah Idk. So the mints that were in the package, the Brazilians loved so much that they ate all of them on Sunday. They thought they were like sent straight from heaven or something. Apparently they don´t have wintergreen flavored stuff here. But whatever I guess haha.

So this week was the first week in my whole mission that we got rejected hardcore. We received a reference from a ward member to talk to his neighbor so we went there on Tuesday and there was a little boy playing out in front of the house and we were like, is your mom here? And he was like yeah, I´ll go get her... So he goes in and comes out a little bit later and is like "Sorry my mom said she´s not here".... We just kinda stood there like. Oh, well that makes sense... So anyways we left and came back the next day and the lady was standing in front of her gate and we walked up all pleasantly and before we even could say Boa Tarde! She went inside and slammed the gate shut. She was like get outta here you Mormons! And we´re like wait what is going on here?? Maybe that´s just what I was thinking because when Brazilians yell angrily you can´t understand anything so I´m just standing there while she is just going off in super loud and fast Portuguese and All I´m getting out of it is LSKD JKDJSOP SDJOHO SDJLOKSDJ LKOZOX NVNOCI ODIFOPWIEJ FOIJF SATANAS!!!!!!! I did hear the word Satanas which means Satan. Man it escalated quickly. We waited for her to finish and then we were like, Well do you believe in Jesus Christ? That was a bad idea because then she went off again yelling her gibberish. I did get a little bit out of this one. She was yelling about how she believes in Jesus but not our Jesus... Anyways she told us if we came back again she would hit us with her broomstick. Then she went inside and slammed the door and that was that.... I personally think it went fairly well. Haha So on a more positive note, we went to lunch at a member’s house this week and we had a Barbeque! A barbeque here is nothing like a barbeque in the States. They have so much meat. And it´s the closest thing I could think of to heaven. There was so much food! It was incredible. I ate so much meat. I gained one and a half kilos just from the barbeque... But man it was so worth it.
I´ve been pretty sick the past couple of days with something they call Dangy (Dengue) here. It´s where you get all these red spots all over your body and it makes your body hurt like crazy! So it´s been pretty tough to stay motivated to work but I´ve been chugging along. I watched a video that I think is called "The atonement and how it relates to missionary work" with Jeffrey R. Holland and Henry B. Eyring. It´s all about how we need to refrain from idleness no matter how tempting it may seem. I can´t do it justice, you guys need to go watch it. It´s such a great video for all members, especially missionaries or those about to leave on their missions. But yeah the video motivated me to keep working even when staying in bed all day was a huge temptation for me. But yeah, that was about it for this week. It was pretty slow but the work is going forward nonetheless. I love you guys all! Fica firme, fica forte!

Elder Harris #2