More mission memories

This post is about my mission. I just had a couple more things I wanted to say about Guaratuba before I move on.

My second companion in Guaratuba was named Elder Gomes, from the city of Campina Grande of Pernambuco, in the nordeste. The nordestinos have a bad reputation in Brazil for being backwards and ignorant, because the nordeste is the poorest of the five regions of Brazil; however, I found Elder Gomes to be very smart in a way besides what we typically call smart. He was extremely intuitive to people and their thoughts, which made him a great friend, and, sometimes, a real pain. He had been a rebel in his teens, and had come to the church later through the influence of his sister. He talked frequently about his rebel days, almost with pride, which bothered me a little bit. But we made a good pair and worked hard together. I only saw him a couple of times after I left Guaratuba, and I wish I knew how he was doing. I learned from him that it is possible to change your life, but it's not easy. And if you're trying to lick old habits you will never be 'done,' you have to keep up your guard for as long as it takes, which might be the rest of your life.


I was very sad to leave Guaratuba. I still remember sitting in the rodoviaria (bus station) regretting that I had not had the chance to say goodbye to some of the people I came to love. One person in particular I hadn't had the chance to say goodbye to was irma Miriam, a less-active woman who I had made such a friendship with that I called her 'mae,' or mom. That's the only thing I didn't like about my mission: you serve people so much that you grow to love them, and then you say goodbye, and you never see them again. I mean, I plan on going back, but there's no way of knowing if I'll see them again. It's hard, but I guess things move on, and you can't go back, but the memories are yours to keep.


Around the same time that I left Guaratuba for my second area, Biguaco (pronounced bee-gua-soo) in Santa Catarina right outside of Floripa (that's a local nickname for Florianopolis), my mission had a change of leadership: Presidente Peixoto and his wife had finished their 3-year mission and were going back home to Sao Paulo, then taking up residence in Curitiba. Our new mission president was to be Lamont Dansie from American Fork, Utah. With that change in leadership came a dramatic change in our mission. Presidente Dansie had served as a missionary in Brazil over 30 years earlier, when the whole country was divided into only 2 missions (there are now about 27!). He still spoke very decent Portuguese, and he hit the ground running. His wife, Nancy, didn't speak so well, but was one of the happiest, most encouraging people I have ever met. She reminded me of my first companion, Elder Carr.


President Dansie was one of those men in my life who made a lasting impression. At first, I didn't like him so much. He has a burly frame, and is, by admission, a "bottom line" sort of guy. He pressed us for results, which anyone who has served a mission, or held an office of authority in the church can tell you, opens up a can of worms. There is this continual debate in the church about numbers. You see, we use numbers because they're easy to record, and to communicate, but behind every number in the church is a face, a person, a soul. So, when someone tells you that your key indicators (numbers that represent people you teach ,and their commitments or measure able steps toward membership and activity in the church) need improvement, it is easy to misunderstand them as being indifferent to your personal difficulties or of the people you serve. It is easy to feel that your superiors do not care about changing peoples' lives or doing a good job, only growth and numbers. I struggled with this argument for months.


What finally helped me to resolve the issue for myself, was that President Dansie enacted a program with us aimed at increasing our faith to succeed, a concept not entirely new to me. On my high school football team, my coach, Paul Morro, had often told us that in order to achieve something, we have to see ourselves doing it in our minds first. If we can see it, and believe it can happen and will happen, then we can make it happen. We have to have a type of faith that we will reach it. Once I applied this principle to my work as a missionary, I acted differently, and with more confidence. I think that is a very important principle for achieving anything worthwhile.

Once I took personal responsibility for my work and the results I achieved, regardless of whether or not I deserved all the blame or credit, I noticed I had a lot more desire to improve, instead of simply leaving it up to "God's will." I came to understand that "God's will" is not necessarily what happens all the time, irrespective of our actions: it is His desire for what we should do with our effort and the time He has given to us. His will is to bring about the Zion that He knows is possible, but dependent on our acceptance of and obedience to its principles.

Back to topic. Right about the time I was transferred to Biguaco, we had a mission conference that only happens once every three years at the least. Our entire mission, about 130 missionaries from all over the state, met together in Floripa to despedir (say goodbe) to President and Sister Peixoto. It was a great experience. I got to see all my buddies form the CTM for the first time in 4 1/2 months, and we all caught up on each others' lives. My next companion was Elder Devin Anderson, from Utah. Elder Anderson was very quiet, but he loved being on a mission, and he loved Brazil, like me, so we got along great. Biguaco at the time was a difficult area: it had seen better days as far as the church was concerned. There had recently been some trouble (what we would call "apostasia" in Portuguese) in the ramo, and a new branch presidency and leadership had been called to try and heal the struggling congregation. On top of that, there hadn't been a single convert baptism in the branch for over a year. So, we had our work cut out for us.

We decided right out the outset, that we wouldn't get involved in the drama and we wouldn't listen to gossip: we would just do our best to sustain the local leaders and their vision, and search for people to teach and bring to church. I was only there for 6 weeks. During that time, we worked with a part-member family where the father, Alex, was not a member, his wife Eusebia was, but he came to church every week, and wanted to join. We also worked with a lady named Lucia who loved the church and wanted to join, but her husband wouldn't let her. I never saw them get baptized but I heard about it when they were, and it was wonderful to know that I might have helped them along the way, even if I didn't personally get to reap the rewards of the work we did with them.

I thought I would be staying in Biguaco for a while, but, to my surprise, when transfers came around I found out, indirectly, that I was being sent to the 2nd farthest area of the mission to be the senior companion of a Brazilian Elder who was 4 years older than me, in Pato Branco, Parana! I had heard stories about Pato Branco (literally "White Duck"): that it was a city full of hills (we had no car or bicycle, so we walked everywhere), miserably hot in the summer, and freezing cold in the winter. I got to experience both extremes, since I stayed there for 7.5 months! It sounded like I was being sent into exile, but I soon realized I was being given the chance of a lifetime.