Spiders, keystones and gratitude for Elder Darke

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Apparently, I've been a slacker and didn't post Elder Darke's previous email!  AAgghh!  Sorry.  Of course I guess I can blame it on a hundred things, or I can just add it here first.  Hope that y'all enjoy it.
Elder Darke:

I am finally understanding some people!  YES!  Ok so realistically i still have no idea what they are saying, like ,99 Percent of the time.  However that 1 percent that i can now understand is a whole percent that i couldnt before! :D.  I can usually understand what we are talking about when we talk about the gospel or indrocshions :D  I am really happy though becuse even though i am improving maddeningly slowly I am still improving! :D.  Soon I will be able to understand everything people say!  I am so excited!  It is cool to look at just how much the Lord has been helping me.  I knew he would and now I have the proof that he has.  So the ammount of portugese I now know, that i have basically learned in 3 months or so.  (MTC, and brazil).  I took chinese class at school for three years, and I know more portugese then I ever know chinese :D.  To me, that is a miracle.

    So Missionary work here is amazing!  Let me tell you just a little bit about it :D.  We have some amazing people that we are teaching, and we find more all the time!  One family that we found very recently is amazing.  So there are like 5 people that we teach in this family.  There are 2 old men, they are 95 and 83.  They are so awesome!  They are old but i can feel just how much heavenly father loves them!  Then there are 3 other people in the family.  So we sat down with them and taught them the restoration (Heavenly father, is our loving father.  the gospel blesses families.  Prophets in every dispensation.  Jesus christ extablished his church.  Great appostasy.  Joseph smith. The book of mormon).  At the end we gave them 2 books of mormon to read.  As my companion taught about the truth, and i tried to help were i could (mostly just tried to understand what was happening).  I could feel the spirit.  This family had a desire to know of the truth.  That was confirmed when we went back a few days earlier.  Only the old men were home, however they told us that the family was reading the book of mormon.  

    That makes me so happy.  To some it may just seem like a book.  But it is soo much more.  The book of mormon is the keystone to our religion.  If we are talking about a painting, it is as important as the paint itself is.  As people read the book of mormon, they are reading a testiment of jesus christ.  One witness can be disputed.  However two witnesses cannot be denied.  This book (along with the bible) is proof that Jesus christ is the son of god.  That he lived a perfect life, and he died for us.  When people read the book of mormon, and they pray that it is true.  The holy spirit can help them understand that it is true.  and if the book of mormon is true, Then it was translated by a true prophet.  For a false prophet could not bring forth a true book.  If joseph smith is a true prophet, then the church he established is Jesus christ´s church on the earth again today, and modern revelation, preestood athority, and everything else that is taught by the church is true.  That is why it is not just a book, but is literally the keystone of our religion.

    I am really happy right now :D.  Becuse Heavenly father is constantly heping me, our investagators are doing well, and it is raining!  It rains here a lot.  However it doesnt snow unless you are in the souther part of the country.  A cool thing about the rain is the clouds!  They are so fluffy and frendly looking!  and a cool thing about that clouds is that they make really cool lightning!  It is kind of weird though becuse my companion has taken some pictures of lightning in different areas of the mission and they are different colors.  He has yellow lighting, but the lighting here is 

blue.  strange...  OH and he also has a picture of this spider that he saw.  It is huge!  Like scary huge!  Like it is a tranchula that is the size of a dinner plate!.  it is bigger then my hand!  so to kill it, they threw bricks at it :D.  poor spider.

    There are so many differnet kinds of fruit here :D.  Most of them are completly different from the ones in the states!  I still havnt had them all :D.  However i am working on it :D.

    The bus rides here are crazy.  So there is a bus and everyone it sitting down in the chairs.  In the walkway that has room for about 2 people from one side to the other right?  well not to brazilians.  I was on a bus the other day where there was 4 people in the hallway.  I wasnt sure how they could breathe it was so crouded :D.  But even so, i kindof like the bus :D.

:D

-Elder Darke

P.s. Meu portugese nao bom, mais eu posso entengie perguntas sobre meu familia :D

P.s.s. meu companeto engengie portugese muito bom.

P.s.s.s. Eu gosto Açai!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wooo!!!!!!!!!!

Here's the latest and greatest from Elder Darke!  We are so grateful for his service to our Heavenly Father!  Elder Darke continues to succeed and influence others for good in Brazil and across our great country.  Even though Brazil doesn't celebrate our tradition of Thanksgiving, I know that Elder Darke's thoughts are of gratitude and thanksgiving this time of the year.  If anyone reading this could drop a simple letter in the mail for Elder Darke, imagine the feelings of love he will have in time for Christmas!

Thanks to everyone's support and love.  We are truly blessed!
Love to all!
Melanie (Mom)

from Elder Darke:

 This week has been fun!  So I have been really bad this week, and we only got to study two days for the whole week.  We were doing really important stuff, however we need to keep studying.  So that is a goal of mine for this week, to have more studies!  So other then that a few amazing things hapened

-We found a new investagator, and the cool thing is that the zone leaders in my area found her weeks ago and taught her a little, but they got the wrong address, so she was lost for a little while.  However then me and my companion found her!  She actually came up to us and it was awesome!

-Transfers was also this week, and me and my companion didnt change, however we are like the only ones in my district.  Both of our zone leaders changed and, the rest of the companion ships got split up and we have new people now :D.

-This week has been full of trainings and awesomeness.  We had normal district training twice this week, then the mission presidnet came to our stake conference and he also talked to the missionaries and the members.  While he was taking I was writing down my thoughts, (and i couldnt really understand him) and he asked the missionaries to stand up and say the missionary purpose.  (this was just the youth, so not too many people were there).  The other missionaries stood up, and I didnt notice, so he said my name twice before I realized what was going on.  (Woops).  :D.  Well at least I know what not to do now :D.  The trainings where on member missionaries and it was cool :D.

-I can finally understand what is going on mostly!  I still get lost a lot, and There is still a bunch of stuff i dont know.  However when we are teaching lessons, or talking about the gospel i can usually understand the general idea of what is going on if they arnt talking super fast :D!

-So I have been reading it for the past little while, but I just want to tell you, the book ´´Jesus the Christ´´ is amazing.  Every question i had, every assumption, and misunderstanding about the new testiment is being resolved.  Now i didnt have many deep questions, about the new testiment, but the small things that just made me stop and think ´´hmm, that is interesting, i wonder why...´´ are all being resolved.  It is an amazing book.  If you want to read the new testiment, or just better understanding about christ and his earthly ministry then i would seriously recomment ´´Jesus the Christ´´.

-The book of mormon is amazing as well!  I didnt realize just how much i enjoyed reading it, untill i couldnt read it anymore.  I am trying to read it in portugese, so having my favorite book in front of me, and not understanding what it is saying has really helped me understand just how amazing the book of mormon really is.

-and finnaly i wish to tell you the importance of rightous judgement!  We are always told that we need to judge rightously.  But what does that mean?  As i have been considering these things recently i have decided on one key factor that can help us.  We need to remember that We dont understand excatally what is going on!  We dont know what people are feeling, what is going on in peoples lives, what they are thinking, or what happened to them.     All these things effect a persons actions.  I encourage you to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.  Am i seeing the entire puzzle here? or am i just looking at one small peice and trying to guess what the entire picture shows?  Even then some peaces of the puzzle, we wont ever be able to see, so we need to do everything we can, then we need to be as merciful as we can be.  That way, we may not feel like we are getting justice all of the time.  However when we look at our lives and realize just how much we are dependent on Christ´s mercy to save us, then showing mercy to someone else gets easier.  

-I really like Brazil, It is amazing!

:D

-Elder Darke