Alcohol and Guns Don't Mix!

Hello world,

I am sorry for the lack of effort with my last blog entry.  I was a little tired.  I really do not like traveling on the bus.  Last week we had leadership counsel with the mission president, so my companion and I had to go to Santa Maria which is two or three hours away by bus. It is a crappy trip.  The roads in Brazil are not the most well maintained roads in the world.  I was tried, and really unwilling to make the effort.  I apologize.

This week was a little bit strange for me, it had its crazy moments, but great moments of spirituality which just help with the growth of my testimony. For example.  This week my companion and I were not having very much success finding a family, that was legally married.  I fasted and prayed that we would find a family of 5 who were legally married, and guess what happened.  We found one. The day of the fast  we were knocking up houses, and we went to a street that we had never really knocked up before.  We knocked up one house, and nothing happened.  The family that lived there was more than likely not there, then we hear a little boy playing in his front yard a little further down the street.  We went there and I talked with his mother.  She was alone with her son, but she lives with her parents and her sister and her husband on the same property.   Five.  We taught her and answered her doubts about whither or not she should have baptized her little son.  We showed her Moroni 8 which talks about that topic.  She was thrilled and asked if we could return and share this message when her family got back from their trip.  We will teach them tomorrow.

Yesterday, was also a strange day; to say the very least of it.  Most of our appointments fell through and we were on the way to another appointment when we heard some man call to us, asking literally, "Come here and teach me the gospel."  We entered into a rather trashed unkempt home.  This man was shirtless, but had received the missionaries many times.  This was apparent because he had the Plan of Salvation handout.  He was drunk, and then he says, "Hey there is no one around who can hear me right?  I have already committed many homicides."  This is where my companion sits him down gives the fastest lesson I have every heard, and in the process of this he called to his "wife" and went into his bed room, where he lifts up the bed and pulls out a small revolver.  My companion, being the savy Paulista that he is, told him to put that back, and the man did, and then we finish and we hot footed it out of there.  Then we found another family of three to teach in another part of our area.

I am discovering how the be in tune with the spirit.  I am very happy to be on the mission, and mom, do not worry.  I am safe and sound, and I now know which house to avoid from now on.  I am perfectly safe.

My companion and I are doing great.  We have resolved our differences and we are getting along quite well.  We have found some really great families to teach and we are going to have some good baptisms coming up here in the following weeks.

Love,

Elder Caleb S. Carriere