New Area Iranduba!!

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 Monday, December 9, 2024; Iranduba Branch, Iranduba, Amazonas, Brazil:

Ooooola a todos vocês! Como vocês estão? Tivemos transferência, então eu estou na minha nova área, nova cidade, Iranduba. A cidade fica bem perto de Manaus. Só 8 horas de pé. 😅

Hey you all, how is everyone doing?

This past week I took a plane from Rio Branco to Manaus. Then I went and got my new companion, and we took a taxi to my new area. 

My new area is a city called Iranduba. It's maybe a 30-40 minute drive from Manaus. Just 8 hours walking. 😅. 

While I am pretty to close to Manaus, this city is a lot more Amazon-like. Basically, there's a city part, and then from there everything branches out. There are lots of long winding roads lined with houses. There are a bunch of paved roads, but also many dirt roads. 

This week it rained a ton. So think about it. Dirt roads in the middle of nowhere + rain.... yeah not sure if mud is worse or puddles.👀 Either way, my shoes were not able to stay dry. 

My new companion is Elder Gale. He is from Colorado, and he has been around 7 months here in Brazil. 

One day we were invited to lunch with the Branch President, and we went to his house. He owns a decent chunk of land. He's got a small pond with some huge fish that he is growing. We picked a few mangos off of trees by his house, and as well as tucuma. He has trees with fruits on them that he rarely picks. Pretty nice to not have to buy fruit, just go pick it!

This city is close enough to Manaus that anyone can go there. Some people drive to Manaus daily or for part of the week. But it's far enough away and rural enough here, that for some people it's like living on a farm. 

This week I had the feeling that maybe God has a lesson for me to learn. That I was sent to this area, because I need to learn how to focus and work better. This area has a ton of different people in different styles of living, whether in the city or on farm-like plots. Some have a car or motorcycle, but others don't. 

At this special time of year, everything gets a little crazy. People travel, people do and don't want visitors coming to visit them, people are home more or are working more.

I got the impression thinking about all this, that God wanted me where I am, right now. It's not so my stress levels kill me, but is so that I can learn, and grow, and work. Thinking on it, I understood that some of the lessons I am and will continue to learn here, are things I must learn. But many of those things I haven't yet learned. 

Basically, growth doesn't come from the same experiences, nor by repping the same thing over and over in our lives. It comes from challenges, harder times, increased weight. But the more we learn and grow, the more we can withstand. 

Just like many of the people I teach. There are people who know what happens in the scriptures, know basic stories. But there are others who don't. I know when I was younger, learning Bible stories and Book of Mormon stories was all about the action and what happened overall. But the older I get, the more knowledge I have, and the more I can study small details that help me to imitate the faith others had. To help me follow God more fully. 

Each of us, me and you, are learning. The more we learn, the more we can learn. God gives us one experience to help prepare us to overcome another, and so on. The more we progress, the more hard things we can overcome. The more refined we become.

So, with that, I want to invite each of 🫵you. Specifically at this time of year. What are you🫵 going through right now? How are you🫵 learning and growing? How is God blessing and preparing you🫵 for the future? How are your🫵 hardships helping you🫵? And what more can you🫵 learn? 

That is the purpose of Christmas. Christ, and what he did and does for us. And what we can do now, what we can become, because of Him. 😁

#SejaALuzDoMundo /#LightTheWorld


That's it, love y'all! 

Elder David Olson
🌴Missão Brasil Manaus Sul🌴
📍Iranduba, Amazonas, Brasil 

Pics-
-Normal dirt road
-The plane landing in Manaus
-Elder Gale and I
-A random stream/river we passed

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