Elder Benjamin S. Smith

We took a big trip to the airport to do some more immigration things and I got my Brazilian ID card! So now I'm officially Brazilian. Until 2023. There's been a lot going on. We've had some exciting P-days with the district, some fun pizza nights with my new companion Elder Cox, and work on the streets opened up. The last couple of days we've been walking a ton to get to our in person lessons and talking to a bunch of people along the way. It's been fun to talk to all sorts of different people here where the streets are always busy. Edilson was someone we met on the road the other day. He walks a lot for his work as well, so we were able to walk and talk with him. He told us that he's always been curious about our church but friends/family discouraged him from visiting. We talked about his doubts/concerns and gave him a Book of Mormon to start reading. Another great guy is Theo. When we started talking with him, he wasn't the most interested but was willing ...

From time to time, people ask what "group" I am in, or who arrived in the mission with me. And it's always kinda tragic because I arrived alone BUT recently Elder McArthur from my MTC district arrived in Brazil and so I had a group! It was great to talk with him again, gotta love that man. But yeah, these weeks have been good. We've been able to talk with tons of people. One of the people we are teaching had a birthday but didn't have any time to celebrate it. So we showed up to her house with a cake and threw a little birthday party. Her young children thought that my Portuguese was absolutely hilarious XD Something I've seen these weeks is how important daily activities are. It's little things that prepare us for big moments. Elder Smith