"I Got Bills To Pay, I Got Mouths to Feed, There Ain´t Nothin´In this World For Free. Oh I Can´t Slow Down, I Can´t Go Back, Oh You Know, I Wish I Could. Well, There Ain´t No Rest For The Wicked...Until We Close Our Eyes For Good."
Well this week has been great! I have a lot to say and so little time. Today we played soccer with the boys in our ward. They love us so much and it was so good. It was 5 on 5. Elder Savage and I were on the same team. I was goalie for most of it (And not too bad if i do say so myself). Elder Savage called me Howard (The USA team´s goalie) and I called him Donavan (The best player on the USA team) but we lost 20-18. It was a great game! hahaha.
Last week I had my final meeting in Portão on Friday. I was super excited, because it was the final one and because our new mission president came in on Thursday and I thought I might be able to meet him. You know how I get. He is pretty much famous as far as the mission is concerned. He´s like the Paul McCartney to all other musicians. Well the assistants said he was coming and about half way through he showed up. I got pretty nervous (You know how I get) and then we were practicing teaching the first lesson in Portuguese. He would walk around and listen but Elder Savage has been making me practice with him a lot (teaching it completely the whole way by myself) so it wasn´t too hard. Then finally at the end, our new president, President Cordon, and the assistants were standing right by me and watched me extend a baptism invite and I did pretty dang good! And they all said I did good and I was happy it was great! Then President Cordon got up in front of everyone and gave some concluding remarks. He served his mission in Argentina. So he speaks Spanish. But he said "I´m learning Portuguese too." He spoke to us in Portuguese but it sounded very much like Spanish. It sounds really different but he spoke pretty well. He said "Last Sunday, I was at a sacrament meeting with all the new mission presidents, 10 of the 12 Apostles, and the prophet." (Can you imagine that!!!!) And he said the Prophet stood up and said if you are learning a new language, the Lord will help you. Whoa! How powerful!
A few nights ago (this is more scarier) we were walking home. Around 9:30. We were running late. It was very foggy out like the old wolfman movie. Where I live, all the stores close at 8:30 because after that... bad things happen to people who aren´t missionaries. We were walking to our house. Our jackets were covering our name tags and our white shirts and ties and we walked and walked and walked. And we saw one person emerge from the fog at the end of the street. As she got closer (And you don´t talk to people on the streets at night) when she got closer about parallel to us she look at us, turned her head and said "Boa Noite Missionaries." Instantly I had this feeling that hit my heart and spread throughout my whole body it said, "Leave now. Don´t stop, don´t talk." We booked it home. I don´t know what that lady was doing or what it was, but she said missionaries in English which is a hard word for them to say. And that feeling... it was weird and really cool at the same time. Like someone was watching out for us. Just a cool story. Nothing really scary.
Yesterday, we visited Jezley. He smoked a little less than a week ago and was sad about it. We talked to him and comforted him. They Elder Savage had me teach the entire first lesson. It was cool because I could actually do it.
Now for my last story. Monday night, we had Noite Familiar over at this man named Marcos´ house. They love us. Elder Savage helped activate them last transfer. Their kids love us. They have 2 sons, one 15 and one like 13. We watched a video of two Jewish men walking and one was telling the other of Jesus. Along the way, they would stop and help people that needed help. The man who was talking about Jesus dropped his walking stick. A man picked it up and asked them for some food. they went back to the man´s house and were eating bread. The stranger that these two men on the street met broke the bread with them and handed it to them. They looked at his hands and noticed they had scars on them. Each hand had a scar on the palm and each wrist had a scar. They knew it was Christ. After the movie, Marcos asked me if I had any thoughts I wanted to share and I told them "It´s not easy to serve a mission. I can´t speak very well. I have spent a lot of money to be here. I have left my family and my friends to be here. I miss my family so much. Learning Portuguese is hard. I would not be here, if i didn´t know this was true." I bore them my simple testimony of the Book of Mormon and the truthfulness of it. I bore my simple testimony about the prophet Joseph Smith.
I love you all so much.
"Don´t Stop Believing!"
Com Amor,
Elder Askins
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