Current Mailing Address

Current Mailing Address

Elder Howard Derek McKeon
Brazil Sao Paulo East Mission
Rua Caa-Acu, 229
Belenzinho
03171-020 Sao Paulo - SP
Brazil

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Book of Mormon Challenge

This is Elder McKeon's last email from the CTM.  He will be out in the field next week!


Wow!! What a crazy week of stories and fun!! So you're all o.k. from the wreck?? Thats nuts!!!
Well this is my very last P Day here in the CTM.  I almost feel sad..... I am but I am so excited to get out into the field and love the people!!! I will also miss my teachers, they are so awesome!!! I have learned so much here i can't even begin to explain it all over email. But i am writing you guys a letter with more filler stuff this week. I mainly want to talk about what i did this past Monday. The last 2 Mondays that we're here we go proselyting in the afternoon and this past monday was our first time and it was the greatest experience ever!!!
 
O.K. so me and Elder Olson had to teach an "investigator" before we left and the teacher we had talked so fast, I understood him but Elder Olson got frustrated and gave up on the lesson, so I finished the lesson and right after that i said, "outside. now." We went and had companionship inventory and before you get mad at me i was not mean to him. We had a nice talk and we all felt better after it; i was scared that he couldn't proselyte so we kicked our butts into gear so we could go do the Lord's work.

After that we all got 2 Books of Mormon each and me and Elder Olson got 2 more from another companionship. So we had 8 total, and we made the goal that we either hand them all out, or we don't come back to the CTM at all... because we had to meet back at 4:30, we started 2 in the afternoon. So we started out and we had to go to the edge of our boundaries because everyone close to the boundaries knows that we're missionaries.  So we go way out and i see this lady and i said, "Elder, we are talking to her." He was so nervous so he told me to do all the talking. She said she was a spiritual person and that she was on her way to her English class, so i asked if we could walk with her and she said yes. We were talking about our "bible" aka BoM and i explained that it wasnt a bible that it was another tesmanent of Jesus Christ. Anyway we gave her one and she was amazed with my Portuguese! That was 1. 

Then we walked down this hill and i saw these 2 guys and i knew we had to talk to them. Turns out they were totally smoking weed right there and offered us some but i said,"No, but do we have something for you!!" One of the guys had talked to the missionaries before in his life and we ended up giving them 2!!! Thats 3. We then saw this guy getting out of his car and we decided to talk to him.  Before we even got close to him he pointed at us and just yelled,"Jose Smich!!!" So we said "Yes! Jose Smith! Do you know him?" He then went on to tell us that he had talked to Joseph Smith 10 times and had read the Book of Mormon 15 times, oh and by the way, he was tooootally drunk..... after we were done talking to him, he grabbed our hands and kissed them... for like 5 seconds each... it was gross.... so we didnt give him one. 

We then talked to some Evangelical guy who was just bible bashing so we left, then we saw this super awesome guy in front of the bank and he was super receptive and so attentive but didn't read the bible or go to church, but he kept on looking at our "book", we sat and talked to him for a little bit and he was so excited to get reading! Thats 4. We then went to a park and saw this guy sitting on a bench and i knew we needed to talk to him. He wasn't very active in the Catholic faith but he wanted to learn more about our church. Elder Olson was really doing well at this point, he had warmed up and was talking like no ones business!! I bore my testimony and we gave it to him and we saw our teacher and talked to her for a minute and i turned around and saw the guy ALREADY reading it!! Thats 5. We then saw these 2 guys talking out in front of a restaraunt and we needed to talk to them, so i took one of them and Olson took the other one and BOOM, thats 6 and 7. By this time we had like an hour left and we just started walkin around and we talke to everyone but they were all turning us down... so we had 30 minutes left and i thought we needed to go back to where we started and we saw this guy sitting a gas station and we decided to talk to him. He told us to sit and i was sweating so bad that it was falling into my eyes i couldn't concentrate!! Anyway he believed in God and everything, he just didn't believe the Christ was a direct son of God, so we were explaining it to him and he could not believe that we spoke Portuguese this well, or that we volunteered to come on missions and that WE pay to come here and we're not paid to be here, anyway we ended up giving him one and he promised he would read it!! We handed out 8 BOOKS of MORMON!!! How cool is that!! 
 
I can bare testimony that this work is true and that I know that i need to be here and teach these people. I will send a letter of other stuff becuase i needed to tell you guys this first!! I love you and will send you an emial next week from MY MISSION!!!!!!!! 

 
Love you all!!
 
Elder McKeon 

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