Adventure!

This week I got transferred to a different area. It was hard saying bye to all the members I came to know really well, and not knowing where I would be going. At the same time I never felt sad. A lot of the members were kind of confused when I told them I was getting transfered and I was happy about it. I was ready to move on and experience the missionary work and a different location. So the way the transfers work is I received an email saying I was going to be transfered, but I didn´t know where to. I spent the P-Day packing and then on the next morning as I was finishing packing all of my things I grapped a bag which had my shaving razor in it. When I grabbed the bag, the blade of the razor cut through the bag and cut my left finger open. At this moment we had to go in order to make it the bus station on time. I rinsed it with water and quickly wrapped it with knapkins and baind-aids to keep myself from dripping blood everywhere. We traveled  to a big bus station near porto alegre and there I met my new zone leader and he showed me where I would be going. I found out that I would be going to the zone Passo Fundo and be working in an area called Erechim. We waited at the bus station until 12:30pm when our bus arrived to take us to Passo Fundo. Most of the trip there we were climbing up hills because Passo Fundo is about 3,000 feet above Porto Alegre. We arrived at the bus station in Passo Fundo at about 5:00pm. At around 5:30pm my new companion showed up there. His name is Elder Niver. After talking a bit we grabbed another bus to take us to Erechim. At this point, riding on another bus was making me feel like I was going to throw up, because the bus drivers here are crazy. After arriving in our area and then grabbing a taxi, we got to our apartment at about 9:00pm. That same night we went to a hospital where I got my finger checked out and it actually wasn´t too bad, there was just a lot of blood. Better safe than sorry. We live on the 8th floor in pretty nice sized apartment room. It even has couches. I only live with my companion here.  My new area Erechim is the area farthest away from Mission office in Porto Alegre. It´s great to be on the outskirts of the mission. It´s really hard to find people in Erechim who want to listen to our message, and it´s really hard to baptize here. But I believe in miracles. I really like the area especially because it´s ginormous. Our area is also full of hills and looks beautiful. It takes about 4 hours to walk from one end of our area to the other. The mission is awesome and has the best work anyone could ever be apart of.

Miracles

    Elder Fávoro and I had an amazing last week. A week before yesterday we had the opportunity to baptize a daughter of God. She´s about 40 years old and has been living alone for most of her life. She was abandoned and denied by any church that she tried going to in the past. She´s been praying and asking God if there is really any purpose to leaving the house and worshipping God in a church with other people. About 3 weeks ago is when we walked to her house and clapped. I don´t remember why we went to this house, but it just felt right. The week that we found her we had a few lessons that week with her. She had a lot of doubts about our church and had heard a lot of strange things about our church from other people. We spent a lot of time listening to her and then resolving her doubts with truth and teaching her how our church really is. Every time we would answer a question that she had she would smile and say, "That´s very different." Whenever she said that I always thought, "I know how you feel. I´m an american in Brazil." The sunday after we met her she went to church with us. We brought her there early before the meetings started to show her what the chapel looks like and what the different rooms are for. My companion did most of the touring because I was looking in the kitchen to see if there was any left over food from the last ward activity. As members started to show up to church we introduced her to some sisters in the relief society and they guided her into the relief society class. Then we attended the gospel principles class with her and then guided her to sacrament meeting for the final hour. The next time we went to visit her she actually invited us inside of her house. She said that our church was very different and that she felt better there than she had in any other church. In our previous lessons we had asked her to pray about the church of jesus christ of latter day saints and ask if it is true. She had stayed up until 4:00am praying about our church. She said that she had also had a dream a night before she went to our church. In the dream she said she was in our church. She was sitting in a group of people with everyone wearing white. She said that on an elevated surface in front of her stood another person dressed in white. I thought the dream she had was very interesting, especially since she had never been in our church at that point. After a lot of praying and dreaming she said that she had received an answer that me and companion were servants of the Lord and that the church of jesus christ of latter day saints is true. Yes! After we heard that we set a date for her to be baptized the following sunday. She accepted. Yes! The baptism went really well and a sister even made a delicous chocolate cake for afterwords. Yes! We continued to visit her after the baptism and her physical appearance was very different the first time we visited her after the baptism. She was glowing with light, smiling more, more confident in her speech, and had an even firmer testimony about this church. During the week after she was baptized she said she had a lot of people from other churches on the road and at her door invite her to go to their churches. She said no to all of them because she already knows which church is true. We explained to her that because she was baptized in the true church she´s showing God that she´s on His side now, and saitan doesn´t want her to continue going to this church. That is why so many people invited her to go to another church. She said that never in her life has she had people invite her to go to their churches until the after she was baptized in this church. Yesterday was the day we confirmed upon her the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Every time we visited this lady she had always prayed about last message we left with her and had the Book of Mormon and the last pamplet that we had left for her on the table. She always read the entire pamphlet and any part of the Book of Mormon that we had left for her to read. I know that if you have a sincere desire to find truth and follow the Holy Ghost, you will find the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints to be the only true church on the Earth.

     About a month ago Elder Fávoro and I were doing contacts on the street and met somebody who had just moved into Matthis Velho, the city where we live, a few months ago. He´s been studying different religions but never really settled in one religion because he always felt something was missing. He´s here living next to his parents studying to become a lawyer. To talked to him for a while and I was shocked at how nice he was. My companion said it´s because he´s from a small town. By the time we finished talking to him we had taught him a good part of the first lesson, said a prayer with him, marked a day to go visit, got his phone number, and he even asked to add us on facebook. The day we marked to go back we ended up having a different commitment and we never visited him, and we forgot to call him to set up another appointment. We thought it would probably be better to just focus on the investigators we already have and not worry about visiting him. One day we were walking down the main road to go visit people and were some screaming at us from behind. We turned around and saw a man leaning out of the entrance to a salon waving his arm at us to come over to him. It was the same man that we had met a few weeks earlier. He invited us into his house and we taught him the message of the restoration. We left him with an invite to read the pamplet about the message we left and read a part of the Book of Mormon that we marked for him. The next time we visited him that week we met his parents. We learned that his Dad was actually already baptized in the LDS church and is relatives with a family that goes to church in our ward. He hasn´t gone to church in a long time and his wife isn´t a member. We talked a little bit with them and they said that would like to get married legally and start going to the LDS church. Their son who we had met before said that he read what we had left for him, but he didn´t read the part we marked in the Book of Mormon for him, instead he read Moroni chapter 10, which is a perfect chapter to read, because it´s a chapter that bears testimony of the Book of Mormon. We came back to visit them the next Sunday, but his parents weren´t home, so we went into his house to talk some more. He showed us that he had continued reading in the book of mormon and he is only a few chapters away from finishing first Nephi. He said he spent a lot of time reading the Book of Mormon and he marked some of his favorite parts. During his study he compared the Book Mormon with the Bible and told us that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. He said as long as the Book of Mormon continues to be in accordance with what´s in the Bible, he´ll keep reading it. We talked with him for a long time that day. He told us a lot about what he believes in and shared some of his doubts about our church. We bore testimony to him about the importance of prophets who receive revelation and the power of the priesthood. He continued to talk saying the God has to have a plan for us after we die. He said we have to have a plan of salvation. Elder Favoro and I looked at each other smiling, and we handed him the Plan of Salvation pamphlet. We also invited him to pray about our church and ask if it is true. He said he will. After the lesson he showed us all of the books he had, because he really likes to read. As he was showing us his books he finally pulled and old looking book out from the bottom of the pile and said,"this is the best of them all" It was princples of the gospel book the church of jesus christ of latter day saints produced for the principles of the gospel classes. He was really amazed when we showed him that he favorite book was produced by our church and included the story of Joseph Smith seeing Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. I´m looking forward to visiting him again. Never stop being humble. Never stop studying. Never stop following the Holy Ghost. And you will be lead to the truth.