I am so tired

Hello again fam! Another week's past and gone, much taught and def much more learned. It was a good week! Tough week, though. Can't even lie I'm not complaining glad this one's in the rear view, it was a workout in a couple of ways and Elder Klinger and I are freakin beat. BUT that being said we can't hit the next upcoming week until this one's counted for, so lemme fill yall in. 

      First of all the work here in Macapá's really starting to pick up! We've been meeting with a bunch of the people the Elders before us left, and meeting new people every day. I feel like we've got a good efficient system going here, and we are for sure working dang hard which I'm happy about. The members here are super supportive too, they like to be in on the goings and arranged when they could come to lessons with us after church today. Super grateful for their support, plays a huge huge part. It's hype too cause I feel like the folk in the ward trust us with references, cause every once in a while someone'll just come up to us and be like "yo so I got a friend... you guys gonna handle the rest?" And boom we're on it. I think here in a couple weeks we should be a seeing a lot of fruits of our labors and finding some people that'll be genuinely converted. Super exciting to be a part of the work here, I love it. 

      So heres the part thats got me so sleepy. This last week the ZL's challenged every duo in the zone to get on after a baptism this week, and we were determined to make it happen. We had like zero people in mind but after a system search we found one homeboy who'd already been taught by the missionaries and been to church 3 times, so boom we're after him. Just FINDING the dude was a miracle, the address left for us was totally janked and left us searching for like an hour straight, but we ended up finding and meeting the dude. His names Alerrandro, he's almost 30 years old and he said he'd been researching a lot online about baptism as of recent. Total miracle, the Lord for sure prepared him for now. We returned and taught him every day during the week, but quickly found that he had some sort of social anxiety or something cause if we didn't ask a yes or no question he didn't know how to answer. So it made it difficult to feel confident he was ready during discussions cause he didn't talk or answer all that much, but we put our faith in the Lord through every step of the week. There were a lot of tough moments in the week where plans changed, unexpected stuff happened or sacrifices had to be made, but through it all we tried our best to keep looking forward and keep our faith in the Lord. 

Mosiah 4: 9

9 Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend.

I was looking at this scripture a lot during the week, trying to keep trusting in the Lord and doing my part to the best extent I could, and our work was paying off! We had the interview for Alerrandro on Saturday, which he passed! That night we cleaned the font and got everything ready for the baptism the following day. But Sunday morning, when we went to his house to go to church with him, he wasn't answering the door. We knocked more and stayed and waiting but nobody was attending, we even tried calling him but nada. A neighbor even passed by and told us that nobody was home.  So like a half hour after church started, dejected, we went to church and told the Bishop about the sitch. We decided it wasn't gonna work out and the circumstances weren't correct to have the baptism, and we'd better wait for a future date to do it. After church ended we passed by Alerrandro's house again and he was out front, and he asked him what had happened. He said he had something come up and forgot to tell us about it, but to leave it for another Sunday. Can't even lie dude we were pretty freakin bummed, for a second it felt like a lot of the work we put in was for nothing and our spirits were low. But then we realized that we did everything that we could, we worked our hardest and tried to fulfill the Lord's will to our best extent, and at this point we've gotta trust in the fact he sees the big picture more than we do. That scripture I shared didn't stop being true when our plans didn't work out, but it was another opportunity for us to lean on the Lord's wisdom, not our own. I know he knows all of his children perfectly and that he's got a plan for Alerrandro, I know that now it's tough to understand why stuff happened the way it did but I'm grateful for the opportunity to put more faith in the Lord. I know that with him, confidence is never lost and promises are never broken. It just takes more faith than often times expected to see the big picture the way the Lord does, and that was a great lesson I learned this week. 

Thanks for reading everyone! Talk to you here next week tchau tchau

Email Title is from The Beatles' "I'm so Tired," from their album "The Beatles"

1. There are a lotta boats here  

2. Member took a photo mid lesson  

3. Lunchin' it up at home 

4. Most awesome gym of all time?

5. STRANGE looking apple 

6. Lots of greenery