Elder Landgren: You Can’t Tell A Person’s Heart Based on Their Outer Appearance

So the world cup started as you all know. Being in this city you have people from just about every corner of the world so every game that is played one side of the road is lined up with one flag and the other side is lined up with the other. After every game people go around in their jersey’s just yelling and screaming and honking their horns. It’s really fun! I really miss soccer a lot it’s has been pretty hard on me to focus because I want to watch the world cup so bad. And that’s all anybody talks about right now but I try to keep it out of my mind.

I really hope Brazil and Portugal don’t have to play each other because people will die and there will be riots if that happens. So pray they don’t play each other, funny, funny people. During the Brazil game we were riding in a bus and all you could see was a sea of yellow running into the street screaming and cheering the only problem is a lot of the people wearing Brazil jersey’s aren’t Brazilian so it’s making street contacting a lot harder because you can’t tell where people are from.

Saturday I had a very strange experience with a guy I contacted on the street it was very weird. We were walking down the street and I saw a man who looked black or more of a greenish color walking towards us. He looked pretty much like a thug as you could get. When he got closer I noticed he wasn’t black he was actually a dark green. He had tattooed every single inch of his body. There wasn’t a piece of skin that didn’t have ink on it. I went up and started to talk to him. I shook his hand and we started to talk about life. (This man literally looked like all the mutants from the X men movies.) As we were talking I asked him if he was very religious. He looked at me and said, “My whole life all I have done is tried to find a deeper relationship with God. I pray every day and ask for guidance. A few years back I made a decision to tattoo my body and a lot of people judge me for that. All I want is to have a good relationship with God and for people not to judge me for how I look but for who I really am.” We talked for a bit more, he said he didn’t really want a church but it was great to see a young man trying to teach about God and he was even more impressed that I didn’t judge him based on his appearance. He was probably the nicest person I had talked to all day and yet he looked like the most evil person in the world. It goes to show you that you cannot tell a person’s heart based on their outer appearance. He just wanted to know that God loved him and cared for him. He didn’t accept my invitation to learn more about the church but he taught me a lesson I’ll never forget. Also I didn’t know it was possible to tattoo your eyes. Yep that man tattooed his eyes so the inside was neon red and the white part of his eye was black. He literally looked like a demon from a horror movie but he was one of the nicest men I have met on my mission.

Well sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s boring, sometimes I feel like I’m not getting anywhere here but after every week I feel like I have accomplished a lot. I have made it one more week. There are a lot of things that I miss but I made a promises to sacrifice them and when I get home they will still be there.

Where I’m serving is very unique and I don’t think a lot of people truly get to experience it because of the diversity. I really like it here. I just wish people wore more clothes. Haha

I wish I could have felt the earthquake. I have always wanted to feel just a little one.

Amor
Elder Landgren