Aug 8th - New Comp, New Transfers, New Stories

This week I received my new companion, straight out of the CTM. His name is Elder Mauricio and he comes from Bahia which is a really hot state where they like peppers, weird food, and parties. I've included a picture of Tuesday when I picked him up in the mission office. He already served a short term mission in Bahia, which is a thing they do here in Brazil. You act as a missionary in your home state for 5 weeks, and then you go to the mission like normal. This means that he´s already really good at missionary work for a new guy, so I won´t have a ton of work to do here. We are going to have some good times together.

It really is weird how different Brazil is from the US. You would think that they are both pretty developed countries, so it shouldn't be too big of a difference between the two, and in the big picture there aren't that many things that change. But when you get into the details, everything changes. Sure, there are trees here, but the types of the trees are completely different. Sure, there are cars here, but you find very few of the same models here that you find in the US. Sure, they have malls here, but the way that everything is done is different. Even the smallest banal things have huge differences. Not to mention the language, food, and all the other changes. Even though I've been here almost 11 months, I don´t really feel like I've adapted yet. 

This week I've been really grateful for repentance, and the fact that we can change our lives. Even though we all make mistakes, the Lord forgives us. Every single day we fail on small things, but because of the sacrifice of our Savior Jesus Christ, we don´t have to go around carrying these failures on our back. We don´t have to go around with the same stained spirit, full of sadness and remorse for the things that we did wrong in the past. Because of our oldest Brother, we can have an assurance that one day, we can forget all of this. One day, we can break free of the mistakes of the past. One day, we can gain new life. And one day, we can live with our Father in Heaven again.

Elder Murray