Week 23 - Just say NO to fish in Obidos!

Hello!

So this week was good. But it started off a little stinky. Tuesday we had lunch at the Ward Mission Leaders house. He called us in the morning and asked us if we eat fish. I have eaten fish a few times since I got to Obidos and my stomach handled it alright but the last time I ate it I got a little sick so I heisitated to answer him. But I didn't want to be rude and I didn't get too sick last time so I said ok. We got there and ate fish and rice. He kept putting more and more on my plate and I tried to eat it all. But after I got through about half of my plate I started feeling a little strange and literally could not eat any more. He seemed a little irritated with me because I didn't eat all of it but I just couldn't. 

So we left there and I started feeling a little better. We taught a family around 4 o clock and it hit me during the lesson. My stomach started hurting really bad. After the lesson we went to the bishops house and I drank some water hoping to settle my stomach. The 1st counselor to the bishop lives right next door and there was a bunch of members there just chillin, including the women who made the fish for lunch. We started walking over there and it hit me hard. Thank goodness the roads are just sand and bushes because I threw up in some bushes right in front of the bishops house - and right in front of the members. So that was embarrassing but the members gave me some medicine and all and I felt better. It was a memorable experience! And now I can say that I threw up in front of the bishops house! And Óbidos is a small town so the word spread and now all the members know not to make fish for the missionaries!

There is a member here who has lots of kids, I think he has 11. And all but one of his sons served missions and are active in the church, but he has 12 grandkids living with him here in Óbidos. He doesn't have much money and their house is very humble, but they are really good. He has an 18 year old son who has lots of problems. He can't talk very well - he mostly just screams really loud, but he understands what people are saying and everything. He loves the missionaries. The one word you can understand him say is "Elder". He gets so excited everytime he sees us and just starts screaming and smiling huge! At church and at activities he always hangs around with us, so I have gotten to be pretty good friends with him. I was a little uncomfortable with him at first but now I get sad if he isn't at church! He is always smiling and he is just fun to be around. We went by their house to pick up a reference they have for us, and the dad said he has been looking all day but no pharmacy has his son's medicine. He said without his medicine he doesn't understand people, and he can't walk by himself or he'll fall down. But when his son heard that we were there he came walking out smiling. The dad was telling us how bad it gets sometimes when he doesn't have his medicine and we could definitely tell. It was really sad. But we gave him a blessing and they said that he is doing a lot better now. 

The 2nd counselor in the bishopric moved this week. They moved to Manaus. Actually just his family went, he is here for a couple more weeks for his job and then he will go. But we helped them move on Thursday. They had a lot of heavy stuff and they are traveling by boat so we had to load all that stuff up, drive to the boat place, and load it all in the boat. I was sweating like crazy. Literally soaking wet, but it was good we got to help them and do a little bit of service.

We had a baptism ceremony this week, but no baptism... A lady in the ward has a daughter that just turned 8. Her husband isn't a member and she is trying really hard to help her daughter stay firm in the church. The girl is a baptism for the ward so we really didn't even need to be involved, but the mom really wanted us to help. So we went to their house 2 times in the past couple of weeks. We taught the girl the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and told her about baptism and how it will be and what not. We even helped and organized the whole baptism service. We had tons of people there and the girl brought a bunch of non member freinds. And we had cake, it was a super good meeting. The girl wanted the bishop to baptize her, so he was there and everything was ready. 

But when it was time for the actual baptism, the girl refused to get in the water. Everyone was watching, including lots of nonmembers. Apparently she has a terrible fear of water and they have to force her to take showers. So after 40 minutes of people trying to help her, and the bishop even did an example baptism with his daughter (He didnt say a prayer or anything, just put her in the water.. I still don't know if that is allowed or not, but anyway he did it). And it was all for nothing because the girl still would not touch the water. There was a non members that said, "Just grab her and throw her in there!" We explained that we can't force a person to get baptized and we don't want her to remember her baptism as the most traumatic experience of her life. Another non member said, "Just splash a little bit of water on her head!" My forehead was red from smacking myself after all the crazy things people said that day. But she definitely did not get baptized. Some people seemed annoyed with her but you can't get angry with a little 8 year old who is terrified of water. So we ate cake and everthing and it still turned out to be fun.

We had a bunch of people set to go to church on Sunday - 10 people firm and 8 possibles. We did a division with 2 young men in the ward so we could pass all the houses. I went to a house with 4 people who were firm to come to church. But 1 of them was sick and another wasn't at home, so we brought 2 and 1 kid I had never seen before - so 3. We went to another house where two young men live. They said they wanted to come to church but their mom is really against the church and gets angry when they talk about it so they didn't know if she would allow them to go. So we went there, me and a youth who doesn't talk. We called and called and waited for them, and eventually, the mom came out. She met us at the fence and said she will not allow her kids to go to because she wants them to go to another church. I talked with her for about 5 minutes or so and just when I thought she had changed her mind, she said "Sorry, but they're not going to your church". Then she walked inside and slammed the door! So we didn't get all of our people there but the ones who came really liked the meetings.

Well thats about it! I hope yall all had a good week! I will try to send some pictures using our neighbor's wifi tonight. Love yall! And ROLL TIDE!!!!!

Elder Green