Aug 10, 2022: What's with me and the BOP?

And no BOP is not music, and also not a dance move. Here in Brazil BOP is basically somewhere between the SWAT and Navy SEAL. But I'll talk about that here in a second.


Hellow everyone happy Wednesday. I hope the week of yall is going great, hope yall are just chilling. (Shout-out to my mom and sister who are having a wedding this week and are definitely NOT just chilling hahahaha) 
As for me I am somewhere between chilling and working like a panicked person to try and not let anyone were working with fall through the cracks, which is kinda hard when there's like 30 of them and they don't always respond to our messages on the same day. But anyways we're also finding a toooon so it's always fun to hit the streets and try and help people who don't really want to be helped. Good stuff.
As always, let's get into the cool stuff now. ;)

BOP

So like I was saying the BOP is the essence of bad news here in Brazil. They're the ones that shoot first and ask questions later. If they ask questions at all. Generally they just shoot. So of course here in my second week literally do nada (do nada means out of nowhere but i like it better in portugese.) Always literally do nada there's a war starting between 2 drug factions with one trying to invade the neighborhood of the other and the cops are trying to get in there and kill everyone involved all the dealers, so it gets pretty tense. And about a day later the BOP shows up and we get like a million calls from members saying "ELDERES DO NOT GO TO THIS PLACE TODAY" and were like okay. So we just chill around the center and as we're there we see what is called a caverão heading towards the area of the war. A caverão is basically a tank without the treads and without the turret. In place of the turret there's an opening in the top for the police to shoot through. So that was wild seeing that. The weirdest part of all is this is the second "calm" area that I've been too, the other being Conceição de Macabu, but in both of them shortly after I get there, the BOP shows up... 👀🤪🥸🥷

LIGHTNING ROUND (AKA IDK what else to write)

Church was great this week there was a recent convert baptized by my comp who bore their testimony and hoooooolllllyyy cow it was so cool.
Lunch on Sunday lasted like 4 hours cause the members basically didn't let us leave. 🙃 buuut we tried to reactivate her inactive daughter so ir didn't turn out too bad.
Pday Last week was baller, we did some hikes here in marica and went to an old lighthouse!
We are getting quite talented at contacting on the bus! We end up taking a toooon of busses here cause the area is so big and the busses are free so it's pretty nice ngl. We've also contacted into 3 active members and 2 inactive members at random moments hahah
This week we made brownies and the day after a member gave us a whole sheet pan of cake...
Trying to find the elect here in the city!!! It's sooo great!

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT/ PRAYER LIST
This week I wanted to base my spiritual thought in the book of Alma chapter 41. In this chapter Alma is talking to his son Coriantumr about the resurrection of the dead. And Coriantumr has lots of questions. But as Alma is talking he explains a lot about resurrection. He explains that everyone will be resurrection, both the just and injust, the good and bad! This is great news, because of the atonement and resurrection of Christ, everyone will be resurrected! But the he adds a warning. He starts talking about to where we will be resurrected. He says to those who are wicked they will be resurrected to wickedness and misery. Those who are good to righteousness and eternal joy! Then he says this "wickedness never was happiness." We can't think that if we're being wicked everything will turn out alright, just cause we'll all be resurrected. Cause God is just. But thankfully he's also merciful, so IF WE LISTEN TO HIM, he will help us to repent and be resurrected to the highest glory that there is. I know that this is true. So make sure that if yall are not keeping the commandments in one way or another, repent, and come unto the straight and narrow path! It's worth the pain, I know.

PRAYER LIST
Maria
Anne e família
Alexandro
Leandro
Gabriel

Anyways thanks yall so much! I freaking love each and everyone of you! Keep on keeping on!

Elder Bradshaw

FOTOS

*ps I've decided that smiling is boring so you're welcome for my random facial expressions every photo. ;)









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