Pequenos Milagres💪

 Monday, June 3, 2024; Porte Velho, Rondonia, Brazil:

This past week was pretty normal, had its highs and lows. I think I need to be more grateful, and that will help me be happier. 

Just one month until my mission will divide in half!

Elder Pohm and I walked a ton this week as usual. We also played that game, "How fast can we beat the Google maps time". Now that 'long 30-minute walk' is 'pretty close'.

We had a Family Home Evening with an awesome family this week. I led the activity; one my family sometimes did for family night that I loved. You get a piece of paper, divide it in thirds top to bottom. Everyone designs a head of sorts on the top third, with a few lines going to the second section. Then you fold it over so the first part can't be seen. Then you pass it to the person on your right. That person has a few lines to connect to the head, and they draw a body, arms, etc. Then they fold that part so that only the last section is visible and pass it to the person on the right. Then after each person has a completed artwork, one more person gets to name the creation. Super fun activity. Hard to explain though

The church released the first few Hymns of the new Hymn book, definitely pleased that "I will walk with Jesus" got in, it's a super awesome Hymn. I am super excited to see which other hymns will be included in the Hymnbook.

We met someone this week that showed a few Pistols that he owns. I guess Brazilian citizens are only able to legally buy guns made in Brazil? And they are super expensive, especially ammunition. Who knew?

We also had a ward activity this week. I ended up preparing the activity and thought up around 6 small party games. We only ended up having time for 3 of them, but it's always better to be prepared right?  A lot of people came, and the activity went great. 

I also had a 'Divisão' or split? Where my companion switched with another Elder for the day. That went great, always interesting working with someone new, getting to know them and all and getting their perspective on the area. 

This week I saw so many small miracles. I know that miracles still happen, and that often they are so small that we don't see them. But this week I was blessed to clearly see and identify a ton of small blessings, most too small to even mention. 

One day we had a lesson marked [Brazilian word for making an appointment because you "mark" it one your calendar] with someone around 45 minutes away. Elder Pohm wanted to visit some people on the way, which was ok, but it started to get closer to the appointment, and I didn't want to be late. I started getting anxious, but he told me to quit worrying. We passed several of these houses, stopping to knock at each one. And we gotta knock 3 times of course. I didn't know if I wanted these people to answer or not. On the one hand it would be great to talk to each one of them but... we had this lesson to go to. As we looked for the house, we asked a lady selling food on the street corner if she knew this lady we wanted to find. The 'food lady' looked around the corner to point the house to us, and it just happened that the lady we were searching for was arriving home on her motorcycle. We had a good conversation with her. Honestly hard to explain all the details here. But the Lord's hand was with us in that moment. 

Just one other small miracle. We had invited this guy to come to church on Sunday, and he came. He rode his bike a pretty long ways to arrive at the church. But his phone had broken the day before, and so he couldn't use it to find the church exactly. So, he kept going and passed the street of the church building. He was just about ready to go home, to give up. But he asked one last person, and in the end got directed to the church, and afterwards he said he was glad he had come. God always puts the people where we need them, when we need, as he wants and as we need. 

It isn't a problem with miracles that makes us not see them. It's that we are going too fast, not giving our attention to [look for] them that makes us miss them.

So, my invitation to each one of you is that you Slow down and Look for God's hand in your life.

Amo todos vocês, Amo Deus e Amo minha missão. Eu sei que Cristo vive! Ele é nosso Salvador, e Ele te ama!

Elder David Olson

Missão Brasil Manaus

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Fotos

-Family Home Evening artwork masterpieces

-City from up high

-Elder Pohm wasn't ready for the photo

-Muitos motos