Will you be using a dead chicken? (1/16/12 email)

I really wanted to be able to email you today, saying that we had a baptism, but unfortunately that will not be the case.  Next week, though, just you wait :)

We had seven baptisms marked for today, but every one of them fell through or had to be postponed!  Thaynar moved, Stefane doesn't have a testimony... Rita's daughter Ramilly has to work this week and next.  She works at this shop where they start laying people off around this time of the year because things get slow.  If you get laid off, you still receive benefits so a lot of employees just start to get super annoying around this time.  Ramilly really wanted to get laid off, but she cannot for the life of her be annoying so they held onto her.  She doesn't want to just ask to leave though, and forego benefits.  Anyway, it appears that her employer laid off a few too many people because Ramilly has longer shifts for this week and next week.  She asked her boss to be able to have time off Sunday, but it didn't work.

Nadyane's three girls are starting to lose their interest in the church.  I don't understand: every one of them received an answer to their prayers that this is the true church, but just don't want to get baptized right now.  If you add Diogenes and Neto, we now have five people who have received all of the lessons and are keeping the rest of their commitments, but don't want to get baptized.  "What are they waiting for?" says Sister Brito. "Condemnation?"  So sometimes we just run into problems and they don't make sense.

We have a lot of hope for Raymundo though.  He accepted baptism so readily, and he would have been baptized today if he hadn't missed church to drink the Sunday before yesterday.  But he's really determined to be baptized next Sunday.  We have been giving him lessons every day this week because he needs a lot of support to stop drinking.  We had one lesson in the house of Irmão Zezé that seemed to really give him the motivation he needed to make it to church this week. (I think I told you about Zezé--the constantly happy guy who goes around collecting recycling.)  Zezé was an alcoholic for most of his life.  He had to be hospitalized at one point as a result.  While there, he asked the doctor if they had any medicine to help him stop drinking.  The doctor told him no such medicine exists.  "What you gotta do is feel really ashamed deep down for what you've been doing.   Then you gotta change your attitude and just stop.  It's all about the attitude."  So on his way out of the hospital Zezé spat on the ground and didn't drink a single alcoholic beverage for the next four years.  But he fell into drinking once more when his wife left him a few months ago.  That's when the sister missionaries found him.  Ever since his first day at church, he stopped drinking.  He was baptized the following week and he's had perfect attendance at church ever since.  In fact, he is usually the first member to arrive.

And this week Raymundo went to church with Zeze and loved it and he chose Irmão Emerson to baptize him next week and he let the RS/EQ teachers announce his baptism in classes.  Last night we had a noite familiar at Antonião's house with the young adults (sister missionaries, Artenisa, Juliana, and Julio) and the men from Cingapura (Raymundo, Zezé, and Antonião).  I sent you a picture of us.  The whole thing was so great.  Antonião was so excited.  He brought a bunch of snacks and a huge cake and drinks... even thought of water for me since he knows I don´t like soda (just that...it was carbonated water haha.  I drank it anyway bleh.)  The whole time everyone was talking and laughing... reminded me of staying up late with my own dear family.

At the end, we went around and told stories of funny, scary, outrageous, or otherwise meaningful moments in our lives.  Antonião said his best day ever was that very night because he doesn't usually have lots of people over like this and he's really timid but he loves our company.  He is so sweet.  It would be sad to live alone.

Apparently Raymundo was really starting to feel comfortable around everybody because he told us a stinking hilarious embarrassing moment.  He was riding home one day on his bike and had to ride past the house of a girl he had a crush on, even though he really didn't want to see her at that moment.  "I just won't look at her," he thought to himself.  So he rode past her house trying his very best to avoid eye contact and... crashed into a pole.  He flew off his bike leaving his pants behind.  He tried to scramble up and get going again quickly but he wasn't in the best of shape at this point and just fell over again haha.

My story took place that very afternoon.  We were just beginning a lesson with an old man named Jose and his friend, Maria.  Jose had this absurd northern (almost Minnesota-ian) accent.  Already it was going to be a challenge to keep a straight face.  But on top of that, this guy was kind of a joker.  We told him we would begin with an opening prayer and explained how that would go.  I bowed my head to start saying it and he said, "Will you be using a dead chicken?"  He told us about how some northern pastor rubbed chicken feathers all over him when he said a prayer.  He said this trying to be a little bit funny, but we had just gotten out of a kind of heavy lesson and...I don't know, we just got the giggles and probably laughed a little too much.  But we regained our composure and I bowed my head again and just started to say, "Dear," when Jose scooted his chair away from the wall and, this time in all seriousness, asked, "And for this prayer, could you put your hands on my head?"  I looked sideways at Sister Brito, thinking, "Did I hear that right?"  She was trying to hold back giggles, so I looked around for something in the room to focus on to keep my composure, but wouldn't you know the first thing I looked at was Maria's feet.  (She has six toes instead of five.)  Game over.  We started cracking up and couldn't stop.  Oh, it was so bad.  Good thing Jose is a good sport.

Love you,

Sis Carter

P.S. on the Pday before last Pday when we tried to mark two marriages... BOTH Luciene's birth certificate AND Rita's birth certificate were rejected.  We gave it to the guy and he kind of touched it with one finger and then backed away and said, "It's really creased."  Sissy.  Thing is... Rita and Jacob have really been dragging their feet with this marriage and baptism thing.  And I think Rita kind of lost her animo after this.  Still wants to get married but, "We have to be patient.  Things happen on the Lord's time."  Okay, yeah, but that's no excuse to get all lazy when it comes to getting a new birth certificate.

 Noite familiar at Antonião's house with the young adults and the men from Cingapura